Can I Sit With You?

Permanent Home for Can I Sit With You?

2008-09-06T20:29:00.001-07:00

We have moved one last time.

You will always be able to find The Can I Sit With You? Project at www.canisitwithyou.org.

Keep reading, keep the stories coming.

New Home for Can I Sit With You?

2008-03-26T01:13:00.000-07:00

We are moving to WordPress. You can find us at canisitwithyou.wordpress.com.

We will continue posting to both Blogger and WordPress for another week or so. Both www.canisitwithyou.org and www.canisitwithyou.com already redirect to our new lodgings.

Please let us know what you think of the new site and look.

A Teacher's Kindness

2008-03-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

by Kafte
17 years old at the time

I was an average student who enjoyed school most of the time, except for my problem of "shyness". What brought about my being shy I still don't really know, but in those special years at school, it was a thorn in my side and certainly kept me from fully expressing myself, as so many others did so very well.

We were blessed by a most gifted teacher in Grade 12, and it wasn't until that year that I felt a teacher's kindness in understanding and trying to lift me up.

One instance of her unique way of communicating with me was when she abruptly said "all right class, put everything away and write a 3000 word essay, you have half an hour." Well, I knew this particular essay was an important one, but my head wouldn't cooperate for a few minutes. Luckily I enjoyed fantasy books, so when I looked at the blackboard (Colin usually wiped it clean for the teacher, but it was still a chalky mess) I saw interesting formations and I had my story. Something about a moon-faced man with a scimitar of a grin, inviting me to enter and join him in an adventure. Sister gave me an A (unheard of for me) and we began a dialogue of little written notes in my Composition book.

Another instance of her kindness was when she read us the poem Chicago by Carl Sandburg, and asked the class, "Now class, what is the Poet actually saying"? Without thinking I half put up my hand (I had situated myself in the center of the middle row so I couldn't be seen well by the teacher, and felt protected from her scrutiny). So when she noticed my half-hearted hand up, she ignored the flapping hands of her more promising students and quickly said, "Yes, Kathy, give us your opinion." Well, in a low choking voice (I remember having to force myself to speak up properly, as this shyness manifested itself in total abject fear) I gave her my opinion.

And this is where my teacher won a medal -- there was a pregnant silence, then she continued to say something like, "Class, every now and then there is a student who truly understands the deeper message of a poem, and Kathy has grasped the significance of the poet's strong words in explaining the city that is Chicago." Well, all my schoolmates made faces at me because of such an accolade, and they couldn't know how much I would later dissect this day and see it as, perhaps, my only academic achievement in my full 12 years.

Today, as an adult of 67 years, I have overcome my shyness for the most part (there are those that actually think of me as ostentatious), and I have no trouble in expressing myself fully when required, but I will always remember my Grade 12 teacher, for being instrumental in promoting my fuller personality, with humour and kindness.

If I Had Grown Up Online? Reflections on Bullying

2008-03-06T19:49:00.000-08:00

By Amy Looper
First published online at the MindOH! Blog
Reprinted with permission from the author

When I first heard about Ryan Halligan, a 13 year old boy who committed suicide a few years ago, I was sad to hear of yet another child taking their life due to bullying. While watching the recent Frontline show “Growing Up Online”, I was particularly struck by new information his parents shared after establishing contact with some of his friends in an effort to get answers to so many unanswered questions about their son’s suicide.

I was completely horrified to hear his parents talk about a web site Ryan had visited that teaches kids the best way for them to commit suicide based on taking a personality test offered there.

A few days after watching the Frontline special I just couldn’t shake this profound sadness out of my head. I had a rush of vivid and unexpected memories about a kid I knew in elementary school back in the 60’s who had repeated first and third grade. Everyone knew who she was and teased her relentlessly calling her stupid, retard, dummy, the usual hurtful stuff some kids will say to those they see as different, or as lower on the proverbial playground food chain. Even more abusive and shocking, some of the teachers chimed in on this ridicule. Calling her out in the classroom with snide comments and making her stand out in the hall. This kid couldn’t catch a break.

She was out for a week one semester because her father had died. Kids and teachers were nice to her for a few days but eventually the usual taunting picked right back up. Then one day while we were at recess, one of the bully boys came over and took the girl’s jump rope and quickly fashioned a hangman’s noose over a tree branch. He grabbed this picked-on girl by the arm, threw the noose around her neck and gave a big tug with all of his weight. Easily twice her size, he jerked her up and she was swinging in a matter of seconds. I mean, being hung right there in front of everyone. Not one kid moved to help. I think we were all stunned.

Grabbing her neck with her hands, choking and struggling to get free, the bell rang to end recess and the bully boy let go of the rope. She fell to the ground. The teacher was coming toward the big tree, but when she saw the girl fall to the ground, the teacher turned around and left her to pick herself up. No one helped her. We all just filed back into class like nothing had happened.

That little girl was me.

What I realized about Ryan Halligan’s suicide was if the bullying I endured as a child was complemented by the resources of a 21st century online world, I too could have easily opted to check out the suicide web site and -- even worse -- acted on it.

It shook me to my core.

Even though I was very lucky to have loving parents guide me through my trying times as a child and see me into successful adulthood, they still had no idea of the many sad and lonely days I spent because I couldn’t articulate the full extent of what was happening, much less even understand what I needed.

This is why I’ve dedicated the rest of my life’s work to meet kids in their technology-based culture, leveraging technology in every way possible, to create positive content options, a lifeline to life skills for all kids to learn how to confidently navigate the fast paced world and myriad of negative influences they’re faced with daily.

If you’re a parent, teacher or simply care about youth watch Frontline’s “Growing Up Online.” Even though the show could have used more coverage about the positive things happening online for kids, it is still an important eye opener for offline adults.

Can I Sit With You? Live in Seattle

2008-03-03T21:45:00.000-08:00

Again, a suspicious lack of posts. Again, a really good reason: We've been busy being gobsmacked by Seattle's Annex Theatre's generosity: they're donating their space for a Can I Sit With You? performance on Friday, April 25th, at 8 PM.

You can buy tickets now!

If you didn't get a chance to see Can I Sit With You? Live in San Francisco, let us assure you that these stories are even more electrifying when performed. And here is who will be performing them in Seattle, so far:

Rumor has it that Jason Kovacs and Jen Myers might be persuaded to make appearances as well.

We will also hold a contest for one more writer/reader to appear at CISWY Seattle. Perhaps it's time to get your story written down and sent in, finally?

Details, lots of details, to appear shortly.

Can You Imagine Middle Schoolers Tackling Mature Subject Matter?

2008-02-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

*UPDATE* Unrelated to the following italicized hissy fit, we have been reinvited to the literary festival to do a panel on blogging and self-publishing for middle schoolers, perhaps featuring some of our less incendiary CISWY stories.

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Apologies as always for the lack of posting. The reason is not lack of stories; we've several in the chute (and still we crave more...).

No. We've not posted anything because it took me a while to get over the shock and disappointment from a recent CISWY turn of events: we were asked to do a panel at a local middle school's literary festival, and then -- once said festival's organizer actually read the book -- disinvited due to CISWY's "mature" subject matter.

Am I really that naive, in thinking that the organizer overreacted, made a huge mistake, or at least an unnecessary and pre-emptive concession? CISWY is about the things that actually happened to us in grade and middle school, and how we actually felt at the time. Parents might like to imagine that their grade- and middle school children ponder nothing but fluffy unicorn manes, enrolling at Hogwarts, and scoring winning soccer goals, but IT IS NOT TRUE. And these kids need to know that other people, other kids feel the same way, and that they are neither warped nor alone.

Here are a few of the things I did as a relatively sheltered, somewhat dutiful Catholic girl from a well-adjusted suburban family, two full years before I went into middle school. First read, and then consider: Do you think it would have been a good idea, possibly even therapeutic and healthy, for me to feel comfortable talking about mature themes with adults and other peers?

Years Before I Was Allowed to See R-Rated Movies
by S. D. Rosa
Age Ten at the Time

I spent fifth grade in a segregated geek/G.A.T.E. class on a regular elementary school campus. We were quite sheltered compared to our "regular" campus peers, which meant that our complete obsession with anything naughty had limited information feed lines. My friends Mike, Miho, and I had to bounce everything off each other.

Like everyone else in our class of clearly demarcated dorks, were given lots of self-directed free time with which to develop our supposedly impressive intellects. This means we were forever dicking around, telling proto-L33T Dolly Parton jokes that ended with the victim spelling "80087355" on their calculator, making cartoons and comic strips, and modifying the lyrics of every song we learned to see who could come up with the filthiest result. In the interests of propriety, I will not reproduce our efforts here, but please know that there is a reason I smirk every time I hear the lovely Quaker ditty Simple Gifts.

One song had, however, been pre-altered for us. Somehow, we came into possession of the following lyrics for that classic dance hall tune, Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay:

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay
I met a boy one day
He gave me fifty cents
To go behind the fence

He pulled my panties down
Then pushed me to the ground
He counted 1-2-3
Then stuck it into me

My mother was surprised
To see my belly rise
My father jumped for joy
It was a baby boy!

Every ten-year-old we knew, and even those we only knew of, could sing this lovely celebration of rape and teen pregnancy. It quickly became one of our standards.

Mike, Miho, and I decided that, given our considerable free time, we should give the song a comic strip counterpart. We named the protagonist Selena, made her a teenage prostitute, and set about illustrating her adventures. She was insatiable, our Selena. Mostly she would meet a man and then discreetly walk out of a frame, but there were times when her hunger demanded something more substantial, such as the planet Saturn. I can only imagine what my parents would have thought had they had seen these still very childish drawings, which contained no penises (ew!) or indeed anything more graphic than a long shot of Saturn going up Selena's skirt between two verrrrry widely spread legs.

This may sound horrifying, but I don't really think it is. We were not actually interested in the sexual aspects of our songs or cartoons, only in the thrill of dabbling in such absolutely forbidden themes. (Oh, and cursing a LOT. That was a thrill, too.)

I myself was so completely clueless about sexuality and sex -- I knew that a man could put his penis in a woman's vagina, but not one jot else -- that I didn't realize the reason I liked climbing the two-story firefighter-style pole on the jungle gym was because every time I did it, I had an orgasm. (Who had ever heard of orgasms?) I even tried to talk to Miho about it: "When I climb that pole, my butt itches. Does that ever happen to you?" Miho said no, as she preferred to stay on the ground and play soccer, but she did ask her mom, who said that she sometimes got an itchy butt at high altitudes. Since her mother only spoke Japanese, I am guessing something got lost in translation, both coming and going. I couldn't get up the nerve to ask my own mom, because we were Catholics, and if something happy came out of wrapping (not even rubbing) my legs around that pole and climbing, then it had to be bad.

My friends and I were both naive and innocent. We spent recess playing games like Statue Maker and soccer. I was fond of using my transparent red visor cap to catch the bees that gathered pollen from our playground's clover. The three of us liked to suck nectar from the honeysuckles growing along the playground fence. We were neither warped nor damaged, nor were we exposed to "bad influences." We were simply curious fifth grade children with both too much and too little information.

That Old French Magic

2008-02-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

By Katrina N. Mueller
Third grade at the time

It all started with a cloud.

Stacy was proud of her French heritage and would flaunt it at every opportunity. She was tall and thin, with long, straight hair down to her bottom. My small, chubby body, and mop of unruly curls seemed ugly by comparison. I was in awe of her. Stacy was exotic and beautiful and strong, like a fantastical bird of prey. I felt lucky, and a little confused, when she acknowledged my existence.

One day, in early March, Stacy and I were playing on the swings. We were chattering idly when suddenly she glanced up and gave a startled shriek. I jumped and looked around wildly for the cause of her alarm.

“Stacy! What's wrong?”

She let her swing slow and then stop, pausing dramatically before she pointed into the sky with a trembling finger. “It's him,” she gasped. “It's the Snake.”

The proper noun status of the word was apparent in her voice. I followed the line from her finger to a single, thin cloud in the sky. It looked vaguely like a kite, or a snake, I supposed. A rough diamond shape with a trailing wisp behind it. Curiosity overwhelmed my fear and I said timidly, “...the Snake?”

Her deep brown eyes were wide as she imparted the tale:

“Several generations ago my family was cursed by gypsies. No one is allowed to speak of what happened, but ever since that day, the Snake has been following us. It watches from above, waiting, following us and using its dark French magic against us. It's... Oh no!” She cried out again and stared at the snake. “It's déjà vu!”

“What is déjà vu?” Panic gripped me. If there was any sort of strange French magic going on, I wanted no part of it! “Stacy! What is déjà vu?”

She looked at me again and whispered, “Déjà vu... It's an old French magic.” I leaned close, afraid to hear more but too enthralled to stop her. “It's like going back in time. The Snake is sending me back in time! I'm having déjà vu, and you're a part of it... I remember sitting on the swings with a girl like you. A blond girl in a purple coat! You're a part of my déjà vu!”

I stared at the Snake in the sky, paralyzed. The shape of the cloud had sagged and melted, but it didn't matter. The Snake had already cast its magic on me. I had gone déjà vu with Stacy. My life, I realized, wasn't my own. I was part of Stacy's déjà vu. I didn't exist, except as a part of the Snake's dark magic...

I don't exist! And at that thought, my uncertain grip on reality shattered. I ran blindly, screaming, from that thought. Only later did I realize I could hear her laughing as I ran.

I'm not sure how long I was lost in that frenzied state. I remember being sent home from school because I kept babbling about not existing – deep thoughts for a third grader! It took awhile for me to realize I still existed apart from Stacy's monster snake-in-the-sky.

To this day, I still shudder helplessly when I hear someone say those two words: déjà vu. That old French magic still gives me the shivers.

Can I Sit With You? LIVE!

2008-01-28T17:12:00.000-08:00

Our first-ever Can I Sit With You? event was a smashing success! Liz Henry, SJ Alexander, Sarah Glover, and Michael Procopio all read their stories from the Can I Sit With You? book. Then we sold a gazillion copies of said book. And then -- in an act of generosity that would have gotten Shan teary even if she hadn't knocked back two beers to combat severe stage fright -- host (and CISWY author) Cindy Emch donated the entire night's proceeds to SEPTAR! All told, we wrangled $400 for those adorable kids and their families and teachers. *Sniff*

If you didn't have the good fortune to attend, check out our brand-new Flickr photostream for documentation. If you were there and took pictures, please link them up. And don't forget to add us as a contact.

Cindy Emch sporting the world's greatest tattoo

We gots the videos, too! (Please excuse the Cinéma-Vérité camera action. Again, there was beer.) Have a look at the excerpts:

Liz Henry reads from The Sex Change of Zyax II:

SJ Alexander reads from All's Fair in Love and Mucus:

Sarah Glover reads from Love Hurts:

Michael Procopio reads from The Sound of Musicals:

Thanks again, everyone. More events and more authors will be coming, so if you couldn't make this one, stayed tuned.

Sit With Us In San Francisco

2008-01-21T21:12:00.000-08:00

It's the first reading for Can I Sit With You? It's just all so darned exciting.

If you can make it in to San Francisco this Friday, January 25th we would love to see you at Vince and Pete's Three Dollar Bill Cafe

Queer Open Mic
1/25/08 8pm $1 - $5
at Vince and Pete's Three Dollar Bill Cafe
1800 Market Street • San Francisco CA, 94102

Come meet a few of the authors including Sarah Glover, Liz Henry, Michael Procopio and touring contributor SJ Alexander, who will each be reading.

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A little bit about the Open Mic Night, from host Cindy Emch:

Queer Open Mic is a twice monthly gathering of poets, performers, writers and artists of all types to come together and share art. Proto-feminist and genderqueer in scope, QOM aims to combine raunchy enthusiasm, warmth and community, unapologetic queer, radical politics and sweet rhythms to create a space for spoken word, poetry and performance that is multi cultural, multi gendered, completely inclusive and dynamic. QOM is hosted by Cindy Emch and Mollena Williams. Please show up around 7:30pm to sign up on the open mic list. You're encouraged to read one piece of work that is five minutes or less. And by encouraged we mean threatened with spankings, shoe throwings and general hilarious tantrums if you don't follow the rules.

About the Performers:
Liz Henry lives in many intersecting communities, as a feminist, poet, translator, blogger, science fiction fan, queer & genderqueer writer, and computer geek. She's had work published in Parthenon West, Xantippe, Lodestar Quarterly, Poetry Flash, Two Lines, Cipactli, caesura, other, Literary Mama, Strange Horizons, and has been publishing zines and little books since 1986.

SJ Alexander lives in Seattle, avidly follows the doings of Britney Jean Spears, and is a Kennedy Administration buff. SJ writes almost daily at "I, Asshole" online.

Sarah M. Glover is a recovering C.P.A. who lives and writes in San Francisco. She is currently using her young children as guinea pigs while manically scribbling away about ghosts and fairies. Hopefully, the scribbling will make it into a book before they leave for college.

Michael Procopio lives in San Francisco, but has yet to figure out the precise name of his neighborhood. He is a food blogger who dislikes the word "blogger" almost as much as he does the words "moist," "classy," and "slacks." His likes include the drawings of Edward Gorey, Cotswold cheese, and the musical stylings of Jacques Brel. His websites are www.word-eater.blogspot.com, and www.kqed.org/weblog/food .

Two Braids

2008-01-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

N. Chandani
Elementary School

Both of my parents came to the United States with the hope of prosperity. My mother and father, both doctors, met each other in New York and shortly after, got married. I have one brother who is four years older.

I still vividly remember the first years of grade school with horror. Growing up in India, my mom always had long thick black hair that was made into two braids like Pippi Longstocking. So in turn, she dressed me the same way for school in the United States. It was difficult enough to have a different name than everyone else, let alone I was the only girl in first grade to have long thick black hair and two braids attached to my head. Let’s just say Pocahontas was my newly established name. All of the other first grade girls had simple and pretty names like Sarah and Julie. They had short blonde hair with cute barrettes and ribbons. I pondered time after time why couldn’t my mother see this? Was she blind? At that moment I didn’t want to be Indian, I just wanted to be a normal first grader. Every day I would beg my mom profusely, to please, let me have one braid. I would have done anything: eat my vegetables, do my homework, anything to get rid of the dreaded two braids. But no. Every day she would put those two ugly braids in my hair and off to school I would go.

I had one trick up my sleeve. As soon as I got on the big yellow bus to go to school, I would wrap one braid around to the other shoulder to give an illusion of one braid. It was pathetic, yes, I know, but all I wanted was to fit in so desperately. I remember one time in particular when I had school pictures. My mom, as usual, made two braids in my hair and even got a little fancy with pink sparkly barrettes and a little rouge on my cheeks. This time when I got on the bus, I got the courage to take out the braids completely. Finally, for the first time, I felt like everyone else. I took my first grade pictures confidently with my hair free and flowing.

A couple of months later my mom received my school pictures. She didn’t say much but the look is one I will never forget. It was a look of hurt and disappointment. A look of pain that only a mother could have. At the time I did not realize what the big deal was. I thought my mother’s goal in life was to make me miserable. What was the big deal if my hair was in braids or just let loose?

I am twenty-one now and I believe just recently, I have understood why this meant so much to my mother. The braids were meaningless, but the symbolism of them was everything. You see in my mother’s eyes her little girl was denying her culture. Every time I asked her to take out my braids it made her feel as if I was embarrassed of her and where we come from. My mother knew that over time I would lose certain parts of my culture but I don’t believe she thought it would begin so early. Perhaps this is why she held on to the braids. She wanted me to have piece of who she was. She never asked me to put the braids in my hair again, and to be honest I was not about to ask her to.

Today, I still have a tough time looking at myself as the world truly sees me. When I look at myself, I see me as I see everyone else around me; sometimes I forget that I am not Caucasian. I am Indian. No matter what I do I can’t run from it or deny it. Not even freeing myself from Pippi Longstocking and Pocahontas can help me run away from who I am. I am, and will always be, the little girl with long black hair and two braids. I will always have the name no one can pronounce, the name that stands out. There will never be a time when I can be the girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. I won’t have the family who drinks milk with their dinner and - I am happy for that. Even if I don’t look, act, or sound like everyone else, that’s okay. There comes a point in each person’s life when they can either use their differences as an advantage or be inhibited by those differences.

Never let adversity define your life.

Calling for Friends

2008-01-09T01:05:00.000-08:00

Kari Dahlen
Age 12 at the time

The summer before the seventh grade, I received an unexpected phone call.

“Kari! It is Trisha! You remember me, right?”

The voice was friendly but the name was not familiar. I probably uttered a noncommittal, “Um… hi!”

“You mean you don’t remember me?” she asked, her voice a bit sharper. She didn’t wait for an answer, “We were, like, best friends in the third grade.” Her voice sweetened, “You remember… right?”

I refused to say “yes.” My best friend in the second grade had taught me not to lie. And in the third grade she told me music was of the Devil and as third-graders we had to be “mature.” Of course, we also had the Crazy Club in the third grade, and that wasn’t particularly “mature,” nor was being crazy particularly God-approved. I didn’t remember a “Trisha” in that mix.

I couldn’t say “yes,” but I also didn’t want to admit not remembering her if she could be a potential friend.

That best friend from the second grade moved on to a Christian junior high while I went through several public junior high rites-of-passage such as having a seagull take a shit on my head during lunch, being accused of stuffing my bra, and having my locker broken into: the shelves my dad had built for me were doused with graffiti and the cheerful pink striped wrapping paper I used as wallpaper now had, “Kari is a Pig-Nose” written between the lines.

(The Pig-Nose thing was pretty unoriginal, but that didn’t stop me from crying when a group of teenagers with their noses taped up high entered the frozen yogurt place where I worked a few years later. They specifically asked for me to serve their yogurt.)

In the sixth grade I ate lunch with a Chinese woman who wore her old school uniform, a shy Polish immigrant, a girl whose mullet stuck up in the front revealing heavy forehead acne, and a fickle, spacey seventh-grader who repeated the seventh grade. Eventually, Mullet Girl decided she was too cool for me, so I stuck with the folks who didn’t speak English.

If “Trisha” was real, maybe I would have a shot at a friend who was cooler than those others.

“Um, well, we must have been in different classes,” I finally said to the voice on the phone.

“Nope!” Again, the voice was super-cheery and expectant. “Look… I am moving back into the area, and I wanted to see if you would show me around.”

“Um, sure!” Finally I could answer in the affirmative. I could be bouncy, helpful, and friendly.

“Why don’t you meet me on the steps on the first day of school!”

“Sure, absolutely!”

“You better remember me by then,” she cautioned, and then laughed, “Bye!” Was that a giggle and snort I heard in the background?

I was skeptical and worried. If “Trisha” was pretty, she’d be snapped up by the “popular kids.” And if she wasn’t… well, then she’d be yet another person that I ate with because nobody else would.

The first day of seventh grade, I waited on the steps close to the location where eight months later I would overhear the football team telling their coach that if I made cheerleader they would all quit the team. I had made finals; they were panicking. I didn’t make cheerleader.

I waited for Trisha.

And waited.

Perhaps there were giggles. Perhaps there were people hiding alongside a building, peeking out. But I didn’t notice them.

After the second bell, I ran to class. Of course I was late, but I hadn’t wanted to miss a potential friend. I didn’t want her to think I had stood her up.

That evening, she called, “Um, sorry. I couldn’t make it this morning.”

I promised to wait for her again the next morning.

Of course, nobody came.

The call that evening was, “Where were you? I waited for you!”

I knew she hadn’t arrived, had she?

I half-apologized, half-accused, “Well, sorry if you are real, but if you aren’t, stop bugging me.” I hung up without waiting for her response.

Fed up with public school life, I ended up at a private high school. But “Trisha” hadn’t forgotten me the way I had apparently forgotten her. That familiar voice phoned me shortly after my sixteenth birthday to inform me of a new dating service in the area. She didn’t identify herself as “Trisha,” but I am pretty sure it was the same person.

“No thanks, I have a boyfriend,” I shrugged.

The shock in her voice was noticeable, “Well keep us in mind for when he dumps you!” I heard plenty of snickers in the background.

Two years later, the phone rang. “We are from the premier dance academy in the country. We saw your most recent performance and are interested in having you apply to our school. To where should we send the admissions materials?”

This was a joke, right? Still, I couldn’t be sure, and I wanted to be polite, even if I had no intention of attending their school. I gave the voice my postal address.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again, “Oh, so sorry…” and then I heard a huge guffaw. The voice composed herself and shushed the peanut gallery, “It turns out that you are not the dancer we are interested in. There are many better than you. Best of luck with your college applications.”

“Actually, I’ve already been admitted to Brown University. But thanks for your well-wishes,” I responded. I knew their call was a joke, but my statement wasn’t a lie.

They called during the holiday break after my first semester of college to taunt me again with the fictional dating service. Fortunately, I was able to respond that their services were not necessary.

The next holiday break, the only calls were from my boyfriend.

I met a real “Trisha” years later. She is a gorgeous, thin, multi-talented woman. But she is also someone with a heart.

Mullet Girl is now quite beautiful and holds degrees in law and genetics. We are long-distance friends via holiday cards with occasional phone calls where I know the voice comes from a real person.

Christian Girl returned to the fold of our Crazy Club and we are now Crazy Mothers together.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

Winter break is over and our kids are finally back in those lovely, wonderful schoolyards.

Now that we have half a moment, can we say how nice it is to hear that your list of New Year's Resolutions includes writing a story for the second edition of Can I Sit With You, and poking your friends and family to do the same? Thank you. For our part, we promise to publish at least one story per week in 2008, starting Wednesday, January 9th.

If you have half a moment yourself, please check out Jen's interview about the making of Can I Sit With You?, on Blooking Central.

School Nurse

2007-12-17T22:55:00.001-08:00

Ken Putnam
Fourth Grade

In 1959, I was in grade four at Brentwood Park Elementary School in Burnaby, British Columbia. I was not a bright student; far from it. One day, while I was trying my best to avoid a question from the teacher, the PA system came on. It was the school secretary, summoning me to the nurse's office. The school nurse was a nice lady, and since I did not feel sick and other kids got called to see the nurse all the time, I was not at all concerned.

When I knocked on the nurse's door, a male voice said, "Come in." I went in, and was met by a really old man -- probably around forty years old -- who introduced himself as Doctor Someone. The good doctor wore a light scruffy beard, thick glasses with large black rims, a plaid sports jacket, and of course a tie. On the desk was a pipe, because this was back when most adults smoked just about everywhere.

The doctor asked me some questions: "Ken, do you have brothers and sisters?" "Where do you live?" What's your favorite colour?" "Do you have a pet?" I answered all the questions to the best of my grade four ability and was feeling pretty good about the whole deal. At least here I could get some answers right, not like in the classroom.

Then he hit me with the big one: "Ken, I'm going to give you some coloured pencils and I would like you to draw me a picture of a man." I began to panic. Fear froze me. I couldn't draw a straight line, let alone a picture of a man. He told me he was going to leave the room and come back in about 10 minutes. He left. I wanted to jump out the window. I had no idea why this guy wanted me to draw a picture of a man. What had I done? Why was this happening to me?

I did know one thing: the results of my artistic endeavors were going to be very very important to my future. A pass or fail on my drawing would no doubt be the catalyst for something great or terrible. I picked up the green pencil, then the red, followed by blue and yellow. My brush-cut head was wet from sweat, and my fingers sore from squeezing the pencil so hard. My little brain was roaring at 1000 MPH.

The door opened and back in came the doctor: "Well, how did we make out, Ken?"

"Okay, I guess," I said, and I handed him my picture. A slow smile came across his face and then a soft chuckle. He put down the picture, looked me eye and said, "You know Ken, I don't think there is anything wrong with you at all, you're going to be just fine."

The doctor was right. I'm 58 years old now. In 2005 I retired after 34 years with the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] and now work for Yukon Department of Justice. And the picture? Well, I drew the Doctor: complete with his pipe, plaid jacket, glasses, and beard.

Ranking

2007-12-13T10:00:00.001-08:00

Can I Sit With You? is the #762 book in sales on Lulu.com!. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you consider that the book I bought my brother for Christmas is #23,216, then our rank is remarkable. We're so happy, so grateful for everyone's support.

Keep spreading the word! Keep telling your friends to buy this wonderful, helpful, inspiring, reasonably-priced book. Use the special education angle if it helps your argument; after all these years of parenting special needs children, we're not above a wry little knife-twist to the guilt/philanthropy section of anyone's heart, if it's for the greater good.

Can I SIt With You? News

2007-12-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

Can I Sit With You? is on a tear. At this moment we're the #813 seller on lulu.com (we started out at 22,000), we've sold almost 250 copies, and we've cleared almost $1300 in direct donations to SEPTAR. Thanks so much, everyone, and please tell even more people to buy our book!

In other, also very exciting news:

Beth Kanter featured Can I Sit With You? as one of her charitable holiday giving recommendations for the BlogHer holiday gifting guide. Thank you, Beth!

We have also been featured at Blooking Central, a blog all about [blogs+books=] blooks. There may even be a follow up Q&A on how we made CISWY happen, so stay tuned.

Our local library is very excited about Can I Sit With You? and wants to set up an author's event, since our book features so many local writers. Again, we'll post updates as we receive them.

Locals who would prefer to get their hands on a hard copy of CISWY right now can do so at Main Street Coffee Roasting Company or Canyon Coffee. Both places feature fantastic, roasted-on-site coffee.

And, finally, we will be hanging with our Blogosphere buds at the BlogHer Holiday Meetup on Thursday in San Francisco. If you ever wanted to see just how tall and striking Jen is, or how short and fuchsia-haired Shan is, then come on by. Just don't forget to RSVP.

The Cure of Nowhere

2007-12-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

by Amanda Jones
Age twelve at the time

When I was twelve years old, the father of a girl in my class committed suicide in deplorably bad taste. One fine Sunday afternoon he suggested the family go to the movies. Excited, all four children and their mother drove downtown with him. There, outside the parking building, the father told the family to get out of the car, leaning over and kissing each of them as they did so. Not being a demonstrative man by nature, the family thought this act mildly unusual, but no one commented. They stood on the sidewalk and waited for him to park and join then on the street.

Instead, he took the car to the sixth-floor rooftop, got out, locked the door, and jumped off, landing in full view of his family.

The man was clearly disturbed, but the malevolence of his method stunned the community. In the full bloom of pre-adolescent egocentricity, none of us knew what to say to Lucy Q, whose father had introduced domestic horror into our lives for the very first time. She was an odd girl to begin with, bony and skittish. She didn’t perform well in class and she played no sports. I can’t remember if she had any real friends, and though I had known her since kindergarten, she was not one of mine.

Naturally there was a tide of morbid pity that swept through the school, but in reality that pity translated into most of us avoiding Lucy Q, as she came to be known, mainly to distinguish her as, oh, that Lucy.

The truth was, I was haunted by the suicide. My mind kept attempting to recreate the scene. What were Lucy Q’s thoughts as her father hurtled towards her? Possibly, I postulated, she didn’t see him until he landed, with that sickening thump, in front of her. What happens to a body that falls six floors? Was there an obscene amount of blood? Was the family spattered? But the question that none of us could answer was why anyone would do something so infinitely terrible.

I never spoke to Lucy Q about the “episode,” as my parents referred to it. I could not bring myself to mention it in her presence, and when she talked about her father, she referred to him as “dad,” and spoke of him as if he were still alive.

I never knew what possessed my mother to invite her on our vacation mere months after the suicide. Of course it was something as basic as kindness, but surely, as I said at the time, she could have dropped off a smoked fish pie or offered to take Lucy Q to the pictures. But to invite her to share my grass hut for ten days on a tropical island without consulting me, well, it was ludicrous.

I had the impression Lucy Q was as appalled as I was, but her mother came to school to take her off for a passport photo, giving me a grateful smile as she left the room. I had no choice in the matter, and subsided into ill-mannered acceptance.

The first few days of the trip were consumed with travel and adjusting to being in the tropics. My mother fussed over Lucy Q, giving me fraught looks when I failed to live up to her ideal of a hostess. Lucy Q and I did not talk very much. She kept occupied by reading Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series and watching the geckos that moved industriously over the woven sides of our hut. I wrote moodily in my diary and walked the island, which was a tiny South Pacific dot, a place of no consequence on the global map.

It was my first time in a developing country. There was poverty on the island, but a moderate, subsistence kind of poverty that seemed not to make the locals miserable. They were hefty and tattooed and their teeth were dazzlingly white. They dressed in cloth bound around their torsos, even the men. I remember this fact surprised me, that they could work their crops wearing a skirt. They smiled unreservedly and beckoned to me if I walked past their fields, handing me a stalk of sugar cane that they had deftly peeled with a machete. There was a constant low current of excitement for me on that trip. It was years before I put a name to that feeling, but I believe it was the exhilaration of discovery.

Some days later one of the staff at the hotel asked if Lucy Q and I wanted to take a boat ride to an outer island to go snorkeling. Neither of us had snorkeled before, but we both agreed to go.

Although I was a strong swimmer, I was anxious about snorkeling, never having been taught how to do it. I wondered about Lucy Q. She was not on the swimming team, and her pale body in that loose bikini looked thoroughly inadequate for the task. Perhaps there would be another “incident.” There would be a drowning and we must return home and tell the benighted mother that her daughter was dead too.

But something curious happened on that snorkeling trip, a delicate shift that had the impact of a proverbial epiphany. Lucy Q and I donned the mask and fins and spilled into the sea, kicking in the direction the native guide pointed. The waters were of bluer blues than existed in my world previously, and the light flickered through it, dancing without rhythm.

There was entirely another world beneath those bluest waters. A parallel universe. A place of such great beauty that my head reeled. I looked over and saw Lucy Q, her eyes magnified comically behind the mask. I could see she was smiling. The reef sprouted in strange colors and unlikely shapes that made me laugh and suck water into my snorkel, and the fish in their outlandishly loud costumes seemed unafraid of us, the clumsy observers. When we approached they spun around with choreographed precision.

Lucy Q and I would raise our heads above the water to shout at one another about what we were seeing, and on one such occasion we saw our guide gesturing for us to swim into a cave with him. Once in the cave, he told us to swim to the back where we could dive underwater through a tunnel into another cave. It was pitch dark in the tunnel, he said. He would go first and pull us through by our hair. I felt my heart quicken, but both Lucy Q and I were so intoxicated by what we had seen that day that there was no turning back.

There was a blank moment of panic when I swam into nothingness and felt a hand grab my hair. My skull smashed on rock and I felt an urgent desire to turn back, but was pulled upwards suddenly into a glorious cathedral of rock and spectral light. And then Lucy Q surfaced beside me and I heard her shout, and it was a shout of amazement and triumph.

Looking later at Lucy Q’s sunburned face and listening to her chatter on for the first time, I knew why my mother had brought her to this place. On this tiny island no one but us knew her misfortune. She had escaped her own context. She was here to understand that she was not inextricably tied to her tragedy, she had the rest of her own life at her disposal, and she had the option to fill it with adventure and elation.

Because of that trip, I learned early on the curative power of travel. And ever since I have lived with a reverent appreciation for it, knowing it permits us the incalculable freedom of perspective. And I like to think it was a turning point for Lucy Q too, who went on to do great things with her life.

Schooltime Story

2007-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Mariann Vlacilek
Fifth Grade

Back in grade school, in Huntington Beach, California (in the 1940s), I felt so out of place, plain and unnoticed. I was very thin, and olive complected with long, straight, dark hair plus I felt like I was all arms and legs. I was born in Panama and my mother was Castilian and French, ergo the complexion that is now called "Mediterranean." I grew to envy all the girls at school with light skin and blue or green eyes. One girl in particular had red hair and green eyes, and I though she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Sometimes, I was mistaken for another race and even called by a racial slur. At one point, this actually led to an altercation in the nurse's office. I am a very laid-back person but enough was enough! This was so very hurtful and damaging to me and I became even more self-conscious, and suffered a great loss of self-confidence.

It was a custom at my school that members of the graduating class would compile a list of underclassmen's traits that they admired and would like to have, and then publish it in the yearbook. Imagine my utter amazement and disbelief when my name appeared on their list not once but twice -- it had been unanimously voted that I had the most beautiful eyes and hands! Me ... the fifth grader with the long dark hair and olive skin. ME!

This was somewhat of a turning point for me. It made me realize that I wasn't an unnoticed nobody, and that there was something of me that was admirable. I should have learned from this, but the previous hurts were so deeply embedded that I bottled them up inside me, for years.

I didn't fully realize the lesson of being listed in the yearbook at the time. It didn't hit me until some thirty years later, when I looked in the mirror one day, and that little girl seemed to reflect back at me. At that moment I learned from her that, although thought of as pretty, I was also someone of value. That changed my life.

Every so often, I think back and am once again thankful and amazed that these "older" girls actually wanted something of mine that they didn't and couldn't have!

Personal Letter Promoting Can I Sit With You?

2007-11-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

If you'd like to tell your friends and family ~~to BUY BUY BUY~~ about Can I Sit With You?, feel free to use the following letter:

Hi Folks,

Looking for that perfect holiday gift, the one that will both please its recipient and make its giver feel good?

Can I Sit With You? is a book co-edited by special needs parents Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jennifer Byde Myers. It is a collection of stories about schoolyard social experiences, both good and bad. All proceeds from the sale of Can I Sit With You? go directly to SEPTAR, the fledgling Special Education PTA of Redwood City (www.septar.org).

These beautifully written, heartfelt tales should speak to anyone who has ever struggled to fit in with the other kids at school, wondered about feeling different, or felt like no one could possibly understand what they're going through. We hope they will inspire elementary and middle school students, or at the very least temper their bewilderment as they grapple with issues such as popularity, making friends, puberty, sexual orientation, religion, race, special needs siblings, and bullying.

The stories are told from the point of view of the former students, in their own words. We did not censor the profanities a former eight-year-old screamed at the boys who beat up her special needs brother. There is no preaching or patronizing. As one reviewer wrote, "Perhaps the most important lesson in all of [the stories] is that the writers all survived and grew up to have something to say, and a place to say it."

We think Can I Sit With You? is a wonderful book. And we would be so grateful for your support. You can purchase the book and have it shipped to you or your friends directly at:

http://www.lulu.com/content/1466612

Happy Holidays,

Shannon and Jennifer

P.S. Can I Sit With You? is also an ongoing blog project. You can discuss any of the stories in the book, read new stories, and submit your own stories at www.CanISitWithYou.org / ciswysubmissions@gmail.com.

The Can I Sit With You? Book Is Here!

2007-11-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

We can hardly believe it ourselves, but Can I Sit With You? is a real live book! We would be grateful if you could order (and tell your friends to order) copies for everyone on your holiday shopping list. The direct URL for purchase is:

http://www.lulu.com/content/1466612

Our experience has been that lulu.com prints and ships fairly quickly. Here is their information on holiday ordering deadlines:

http://www.lulu.com/en/help/shipping_faq#holiday_deadlines

We will start doing official promoting (press releases, website relaunch) on Thursday 11/29. We are also starting to plan Bay Area book readings and book release parties, so keep watching this space for more information (and for more stories).

Thanks once again to everyone who donated their time and talent to this project. All hail the Power of the Internet!

Review Copies Arrived Today!

2007-11-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

The good mailman delivered the first hard copies of the Can I Sit With You? book to Jen's house while we were sitting at her table, having a strategy meeting while wondering if our kids were emitting more snot than SJ.

Wowsers. The book is for real, and is so beautiful.

And there are a few tiny small typos. Other than that, it is good. So you should hear the trumpets from this tower and then start experiencing inexplicable urges to buy buy buy your own copy in the next day or two.

Thank you to everyone who bought a review copy on faith!

Go Ahead, Jump!

2007-11-25T13:06:00.001-08:00

by Seymour Rosenberg
Age twelve at the time

In 1983, California's largest almond growers' concern sent me and the rest of my Catholic School's eighth grade class on a field trip to Sacramento. Woo-hoo!

As you know, you are the music you listen to, even in eighth grade. I liked Gary Numan, Pat Benatar, and the Talking Heads, but none of my classmates did. Even so, I wanted the cool kids to think I was one of them and come hang out with me. I'd seen them scribbling "Van Halen" all over their Pee-Chee folders and notebooks, so I bought a Van Halen painter's hat and wore it on the bus. And it actually worked! Several people came and sat with me, saying, "I didn't know you liked Van Halen!"

So began many fruitless years of trying to achieve coolness points through musical means.

(At least the hat matched my blue and red corduroy OP shorts.)

We iz working on our website, OK?

2007-11-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

A wonderful volunteer did most of the work, and then we went to sleep and forgots to do the rest. This is how we now feel:

moar funny pictures

Immigrant Kids

2007-11-23T08:03:00.000-08:00

by Wynn Putnam
Age seven at the time

When I was almost eight years old, my family emigrated from Holland to Ontario, Canada. We spoke only Dutch, so when we went to school in Ontario, the teacher put my twin sister, me, and my two older sisters all in grade one. Once we learned how to speak English they would reevaluate us to see if my twin and I should really be in Grade three, and my older sisters in Grades four and six.

This was a one-room school house so we felt awkward and big sitting in the grade one row while kids our own size sat on the other side of the room and at the back. When the older, bigger kids would point and snicker at us we did not know what they were saying so we smiled at them. We wanted to learn to speak English, and be able to join in with their fun and sit with them.

This was a country schoolhouse, so everyone brought their lunch. At noon we followed the other Grade Ones, got our lunch bags from the hall, and started to eat. But one day when we went to get our lunch bags, a couple of the bigger kids went in front of us and grabbed them. They looked in our bags, ate what they liked, then tossed the bags into the garbage.

My sister and I went back to the classroom and tried to communicate to the teacher that these kids had taken our lunch. We could not say what had happened, and she thought that we did not have a lunch that day. Apparently a kid at the back said that we had already eaten our lunch and some other kids laughed. We started to point at the kids who had taken our lunch and made gestures with our hands, when the teacher took an apple out of her own bag and started to cut it in half. We shook our heads and started to cry. All of a sudden a few of the younger children came over to our desk and gave us some of their lunch, a cookie, an orange -- I can’t remember exactly, but they wanted to share. We stopped crying, smiled, and told each other in Dutch that the foods we were now being given were delicious, even better than what had been in our lunch bag. We communicated our thanks to these kids by smiling and making gestures of what we were trying to say.

For the next while we put our lunch bags in our desks, because it took quite a bit more time before we could speak English well enough to tattle on the few kids who tormented us because we spoke a different language. Most kids in the class tried to help us belong, even when they could see how big we looked in the grade one row, and that we talked in a strange language.

Smiling faces are the same in every language, and it’s easy to communicate with other kids that way and join in their fun. Kids like to sit with you when your face shows a friendly smile -- even if you cannot speak their language, they understand.

Thankful: Wonderful CISWY Book Review

2007-11-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

We solemnly swear that the first, thoughtfully positive and rather persuasive review of Can I Sit With You? on lulu.com was totally unsolicited. We honestly have no idea who wrote it, but we loooooves them very much.

...For any adult who wants to be allied with a child (and even normal kids get the blues), this kind of book may be just the thing to open up discussion of what's happening to that child. It may comfort just because of its honesty and its assurance that other children have felt and survived these things, or it could be used to foster problem-solving to help a child cope with the pitfalls and hazards of even the most normal school experience. It could also help kids who don't have problems (or who are the problems) to see the situation from the point of view of those who are struggling, and open up the way for conversations about compassion and the different experiences of other people.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

A Day of Rest

2007-11-21T08:25:00.001-08:00

We've been happily working overtime (beyond the usual overtime of our daily lives, that is) to get this wonderful CISWY book published--but we're going to be "resting" today. See you tomorrow, with a brand new story.

In the meantime, don't forget to send us any stories about your social experiences at school or the silliest thing you ever did to get someone to be your friend. Size does not matter.

Want to Know a Secret?

2007-11-20T13:42:00.001-08:00

Psst ... hey, guess what? We've published the Can I Sit With You? book. Exciting, eh?

We think so, too. However, because we're new at this, we aren't going to bring out the trumpets just yet. We'd like to have the time to review a physical copy, first. That will take about a week.

In the meantime, you are certainly welcome to purchase your own review copy, as we are ninety-nine percent certain that the book looks how we think it looks. And we will certainly have the final final version available to purchase for the holidays. Never fear. And thanks again to all of our wonderful contributors!

Free to Be You and Me

2007-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

By Giedra Campbell
Age eight to present

In fourth grade I started going to a small magnet school. That first year it was easy to be friends with all the girls in my class—there were only seven of us, and eighteen boys. We seven hung fairly closely together, in part because of the efforts of Ms. Shainey, our teacher, who arranged special activities with the girls so we wouldn't be overwhelmed by all those boys. She told us that women could be anything they wanted, and used us to help teach diversity workshops. She'd have us act out scenes from a record called Free to be You and Me to teach about prejudice and stereotypes. In my scene, my friend Amanda and I pretended to be babies, and to be confused about who was a girl and who was a boy ("You're bald, so you must be a boy"). Our scene showed how you shouldn't make assumptions about someone based on looks, nor limit someone based on their sex.

Come fifth grade, the number of girls in the class rocketed up to fourteen, and that's when cliques started forming. Two of the new girls and five of the fourth grade group formed a group they called the Super Seven. I don't know that they ever actively shunned me, but for whatever reason, I was not part of their group. They gathered on the parallel bars, separate and superior. Meanwhile over at the jungle gym, four of the new girls and I became the Fabulous Five. We modeled the name on the Super Seven, but we didn't really know what our club was supposed to do.

Probably the Super Seven didn't know either, but it seemed like the Super Seven was about boys and clothes. Those girls were the ones who were "going with" boys (and kissing! on the obstacle course!) or at least excited about the possibility. We Fabulous Five were uncomfortable with that idea. The only thing I remember from our club was talking about was how horrendous it would be to get your period, and to therefore have to carry a purse. We'd then scan the playground looking for purses so we could gossip about their owners, even as we'd just admitted that such attention would be awful.

There were three other girls in the class, too. I am embarrassed to confess that we called them the Terrible Three. Not only is it not alliterative, but I can't think of a single terrible thing about them. They just happened to be the most different. Valentina, who had been in fourth grade with the rest of us, was the youngest in the class by over a year and had the longest hair in school. Shaleena was the only black girl in the whole program, and had a British accent. And she wore a bra. Because she needed to. And she carried a purse. And the last girl, Phillipa, well, I can't even identify a difference in her case. She was the tallest girl in the class, but were we really that shallow? (In hindsight I see that all three also had unusual names, but by that criterion, clearly I should have been in their group!)

The groups did not stay the same for long—I don't even remember how long those "clubs" lasted, but certainly there was shuffling of alliances all throughout sixth grade and junior high. By the time we got to high school, my best friends were Kara, a fellow Fabulous Fiver, and Shelley and Amanda—two of the Super Sevens. Throughout junior high we had cemented our friendships mostly through our time in choir and drama together, making up silly dances for talent shows and musicals, and skipping through the halls of our junior high singing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and "Born Free!" at the top of our lungs.

In ninth grade, we made new friends, but also stayed close to one another. Or so I thought. Until I read what Amanda wrote in my yearbook:

"..…I'm glad that us four got to be good friends last year and this year. But understand that I changed a lot, and by the end of the summer I'll need some constant and reliable friends. I just don't like singing in the hallway and dancing. I dunno, it's fun at someone's house but otherwise it's embarrassing—pretty soon it'll hit you and you'll die! Sorry—this sounds so degrading, but the truth is you're such good friends. Anyway, loosen up and learn to party….."

And just like that, Amanda and I were never friends again. I don't think she meant to hurt my feelings; she was only being honest. Though the words stung, she couldn't help it that the goofy antics of a big ole drama geek made her uncomfortable. But her discomfort with me was no different from the discomfort I felt about her world of popular kids. I know I felt just as negatively about her group as she felt about mine.

By the end of high school, Shelley and Valentina were among my closest friends—never mind our having been in three separate cliques in fifth grade. The glue that held us together was in fact our shared experiences since fourth grade, and of course the fact that we all still thought singing in public was amusing.

As for Amanda? She died in a car accident, less than a month after we graduated. I was traveling at the time. When I returned, my mother gave me a newspaper containing the story, and I sat on the floor in my room reading it over and over again. The article told how Amanda had come in from riding her skateboard, had donned something for going out, and had parted from her dad for the last time, saying in her hip way, "Later days, Dad." (The article's next line? "There would be none.") The article spoke of the career in architecture that was not to be, and of Amanda's many, many friends. They made her sound so full of potential, so bright, so friendly, so loved.

I had mixed feelings. I didn't know how to mourn someone who was apparently too cool for me, even if she had once been a friend.

Twenty years later, I believe that Amanda was all of the things the article said she was. Of course she probably would have changed her major and career when she got to college, but she probably was a wonderful friend to her friends at the time and she had a promising future. And I also believe that she would have matured out of the cliquish place she was in in high school that led her to drop me as a friend—and even to tell me so in writing!

Nowadays, I have friends who were part of the popular crowd at their high school—people I know I would have avoided at the time. I bet Amanda would by now have made friends with some drama people. These days, she might have even been okay with watching me stand in public somewhere and belt out "...and you and me are free to be, you and me." I'd like to think so, anyway, because if no one appreciates differences, then there really is no point to being free to be YOU and to be ME.

Can I Sit With You? on DeviantART

2007-11-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

We'd like to congratulate Lea Hernandez: her Can I Sit With You? cover art has been named a Daily Deviation at deviantART.com for today!

Anyone who has toodled on over here from there via Lea, please check out our Mission Statement and send us a story and buy our book when it comes out!

Can I Sit With You?: The Video

2007-11-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Every person we've talked to since this project began has a Can I Sit With You? story. Every last one. But a lot of people are cautious about sending us a written story, because they "aren't writers." So, we're curious. What would you think about seeing video clips of peoples' stories instead, a la YouTube?

It Happened Several Years Ago

2007-11-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

But it’s still something that brings tears to my eyes and inspires me when I’m feeling low.

by Jessica of Kerflop and Flawed but Authentic
High School

The public schools I attended from 6th grade to 12th grade had amazing special education programs for children with various handicaps. Children with Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome, Autism, and more participated in “mainstream” programs that placed them along side the rest of us in classes like gym, Biology, History, and more. As a result, I grew up with a fairly mature slice of the adolescent population. I never heard anyone with a disability get teased or made fun of. Popular girls and guys joked with the special ed kids in the halls, walked with them to and from class, and volunteered as aides in their homerooms.

I was very close friends with a darling girl named Vanessa who had Downs. She made us a “Best Friends Forever” wallet card that I still have in my keepsake box. I was proud to see Jeff, another boy with Downs working at a local big box store a few years after we graduated. He would ride the bus and ask me if my friend Amy was willing to marry him yet.

Three years after I graduated from Murray High School, my little sister was a Senior and a finalist for Homecoming Queen. Among the 10 Homecoming Queen finalists were two girls with disabilities. Shellie Eyre had Down syndrome, April Perschon suffered from physical and mentail disabilities due to a brain hemorrhage she had in her childhood. Since special education students usually stay for a few extra years, I too knew Shellie when I attended Murray High.

The finalists were escorted out to the gym floor by their fathers or dates. When Shellie and April walked out, the crowd rose to its feet, cheering and clapping.

Shellie’s parents tried to prepare her for the possibility of not winning, but it was unnecessary. Murray High School crowned an adorable little plump girl with Down syndrome their 1997 Homecoming Queen that night. And you know what? There wasn’t a dry eye in the audience.

Kids can be so cruel. The movies and media that show the popular kids regularly mocking and ostracizing the “losers” isn’t that far off the mark. But stories like this do my soul good. Kids can be mature, responsible, caring human beings. I’ll never forget Shellie’s little face, beaming beneath her sparkly crown. April’s too, as she was crowned an attendant.

Whenever I feel like all of the terrible things that happen in the world seem to be winning, I just open my old sheet of newspaper and read the whole story again. Hope in humanity makes everything feel better.

CISWY Cover: Production Notes

2007-11-15T00:48:00.000-08:00

For those of you who just have to know how in the heck Lea Hernandez conjured up such amazing book cover art for Can I Sit With You?.

The Pencil Box

2007-11-14T00:03:00.000-08:00

by Suzanne Maclyn
Age seven at the time

In second grade, I was the new kid, again. My family moved ten times by the time I was twelve years old. I went to so many different schools that while eventually being “the new kid” became normal for me, it was never easy. Every time I started a new school, I had no friends, and I didn’t know the rules. Sometimes I cried because I did things wrong—or at least the wrong way for each new school.

Going to a new school usually meant that I had learned different things than the kids at my new school. In second grade, I knew how to read and spell better than the kids in my new class. Because of this, my teacher would have me tutor the other kids, most of whom did not speak English at home. We always had a spelling test on Mondays. If kids missed spelling tests because they were absent, she had me give them the make up spelling tests during lunch and recess. That was okay by me since I had no one to play with at recess anyhow. If there were no tests to give, I would pick up all the trash in our classroom. Sometimes I helped the teacher correct papers.

I was only seven years old, but I was tutoring classmates and giving them spelling tests, which in hindsight is just weird. The kids in class sure thought it was, and they were not nice to me at all.

One day I brought a new pencil box to school. I had decorated it by writing, “I love Jesus” and drawing special Christian fishes on it. I really liked going to church on Sundays, and thought that my pencil box was pretty. I was sad when the kids in class started to make fun of my pencil box, pointing at it, and singing in a teasing way, “She loves Haysoos!”

Haysoos was a boy in our class, but I didn't really know him. His friend Raul yelled across the class and told me that Haysoos didn’t like me. I was angry at the way everyone was laughing at me, and I told him that I didn’t like Haysoos either!! I finally said that I hated Haysoos, even though I had no reason to hate him. Raul pointed at my pencil box and told me that I loved Haysoos. I was confused and told him that I hated Haysoos. I could not figure out why he kept pointing at me and laughing. Haysoos was mad and he was making mean faces at me.

I wanted to stay in the classroom during lunch, but the teacher needed to lock up the classroom, so I had to go outside. On the playground, the boys started running around me in circles singing, “You love Haysoos! You love Haysoos!”

I was getting so mad! I didn’t even really know Haysoos! Why were they saying this? I was screaming at them, telling them I didn’t even like Haysoos! When we went back to class, Raul came over to me and showed me on my pencil box where I wrote “I love Jesus.”

When Raul read it to me, he said, “You wrote it right here: See? I love Haysoos.”

I argued with him, “That says, I love Jesus!”

Raul retorted, “That is Haysoos! You spell Haysoos J-E-S-U-S!”

Now Raul was trying to give me a spelling lesson. But I still did not understand how J-E-S-U-S could be pronounced “Haysoos,” so I just kept fighting with him even though it only made me cry. Finally other students in the class told me that in Spanish, the name Jesus is pronounced “Haysoos.” I didn’t know what to do. I was very surprised, and finally understood why they were making fun of me, but it only made me mad at myself. I felt stupid.

When school finished that day, Raul and some other boys followed me and teased me even more. I was so aggravated,that I threw my pencil box into the trashcan. I wanted to show them that I didn’t love Haysoos.

I was very sad when I got home. All I could do was cry when I thought of my pretty decorated pencil box in the trash. I kept thinking of how happy I was when I first brought my pencil box to school, and how sad I was when I found out Haysoos's name was spelled the same way as Jesus'. I was angry that the kids at school were having fun teasing me, too.

I thought that if I threw my pencil box into the trash, Raul and his friends would stop taunting me. Well, they kept harassing me anyway. But I wasn’t the only person that they picked on. They were mean to a lot of kids, and even to each other sometimes. I learned to stay away from them whenever I could. Plus I was just waiting. Waiting until my family had to move again. Then I could go to a new school.

A Giver

2007-11-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

Kat Kan
Age 13 at the time

When I was in school in the United States, it was miserable. Before then I had lived in Japan, as a military dependent with a Japanese mother and lots of family who accepted us mixed-race kids. Life was so great. Then we moved to Tacoma, Washington, where my father was stationed, and all of a sudden I became a pariah -- for having a Japanese mother, for looking like the local kids with German ancestry even though I was mixed-race (how dare I!), for getting good grades. So, instead of trying to make friends, I closed in on myself. I turned to books and they became my friends; science fiction books and mystery books became particularly wonderful friends. Andre Norton became one of my favorite authors, and Mr. Spock on Star Trek was the character I could identify with. Simon and Garfunkel's song "I Am a Rock" was my anthem: "...and a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries."

When my father returned from a year's tour in Vietnam and we moved to Warner Robins, Georgia for my eighth grade year, I thought life might be a little better. The teachers seemed to like me, and the other students didn't really notice me, so I didn't get into trouble. There was even one girl who said she wanted to be my friend, that we should exchange Christmas gifts. I bought her the best gift I could find for my $1.00 monthly allowance (this was back in 1968), and I wrapped it and took it to school the last day before Christmas break. I gave it to her, and she thanked me and said she forgot my gift at home. She never did bring it by, not to my house, not to school. And now, 39 years later, I can't remember her name. It took me years before I would ever take a chance at making a friend again.

We're Twins!

2007-11-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

By Jessica Ellis
Age 18 at the time

When I was in college, there was this girl that I desperately wanted to be friends with. I didn't know anything about her really, but she looked interesting and I thought we would click. Of course, it's kind of weird to walk up to someone and say, "Hey, you look cool. Wanna be best friends?" So instead, I tried a different tactic. I decided to take advantage of the fact that we had a class together, and what's more, we had the same backpack. I walked up to her one day after class and hit her with a brilliant line: "Hey! We're backpack twins!"

"Uh-huh." She speed-walked away from me. (To this day, I appreciate that she refrained from actually running.) Somehow, that wasn't quite the perfect friends-forever opening line that I had imagined.

Epilogue: We encountered each other again the next year, and actually did become friends. The term "backpack twins" no longer makes either of us cringe.

My Right Toe

2007-11-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

by Eric Thomas
Age 12 at the time

Steve Ramirez was cool. Even as a sixth grader he could dance and play any sport well, make people laugh, and talk to girls without nausea. In other words, he was the polar opposite of me.

He broke his toe playing football in his front yard with other cool kids, and was in crutches for a few weeks. At school, his injury made him shine even brighter. Teachers and students alike wanted to carry his books while he crutched from class to class. Everyone asked him how he hurt himself, when he would get the cast off, did it hurt or itch.

I wasn't jealous of him. I didn't dislike or resent him. I liked him as much as everyone else.

A few weeks after Steve was off the crutches, I lay on my stomach on the floor of my room, kicking my right toe against the floor as hard as I could stand. I was trying to break my own toe. I kicked harder and harder, but stopped when it was clear that I didn't have the will to do any real damage.

As silly as it seems now, it seemed like a reasonable sacrifice to make in order to make a few friends.

Can You Believe Our Cover Art?

2007-11-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

The explosively talented Lea Hernandez just finished the cover art for Can I Sit With You?. I was so overwhelmed by the color, beauty, and details that I almost cried. Those shoes, people. Those are hand-crafted clay shoes. Please spend a long time poring over the picture and drinking in all the detail work, and being amazed once more by all the volcanic talents who have donated their work to Can I Sit With You?.

By the way, Can I Sit With You? is participating in NaBloPoMo. In between stories and announcements, we'll post your one- or two-paragraph descriptions of the silliest thing you ever did to get someone to be your friend. I posted yesterday; see if you can top my absurdity!

NaMoBloPo Wha?

2007-11-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

Well, now, SOMEBODY signed us up for NaBloPoMo. I'm not pointing any fingers. That you can see.

What I am doing is crossing my fingers, hoping that some of you would like to send in one-paragraph entries detailing the most absurd things you ever did to get someone to be, or stay, your friend. We'll post them daily for the rest of November, in between our regular stories. You can email the submissions to us at ciswysubmissions at gmail.com. I guess I'll go first:

One of the silliest things I ever did was tell my Japanese friend Miho that my family had Japanese ancestry. It was an outright lie. But I really liked her family, and was desperate for a way to guarantee that I'd be closer to her than our friend and my rival, Michael. I wanted to be the only one her mother taught to do complicated origami, use chopsticks, and eat ramen noodles! I wanted to be the only one with access to Miho's Japanese sticker collection, hamsters, and Manga books!

Miho just laughed at me, knowing that there was no way in Hell I was Japanese. She liked me for (or despite) my personality, not my background. And she liked Michael, too. And I just had to deal with being part of a trio rather than a pair.

-Shan

Fake Friends on Facebook

2007-11-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Jessica Zeiler
Middle school

Sometimes I wonder if the universe put an invisible-only-to-me "Mock Me" sign on my back during my middle school years. (I really did have a Kick Me sign on my back, one time.)

My family moved from suburban Rhode Island to rural Virginia when I was ten years old. I had gotten picked on here and there in Rhode Island but I still managed to make friends and find my niche. I had hopes of finding the same niche in Virginia but it was not to be -- the new kids were into country music, colored jeans, and pretending to date one another. I wore stretch pants, liked Disney and Broadway music, and thought boys were gross. Did I mention I was also the only Jewish person in my grade?

The toughest part of my new school was that it was small and private; some of the kids had been there since kindergarten, and many of us were stuck with each other until we graduated from high school. There were few ways to escape the bullies.

I don't even know if I could catalog every indignity I suffered at the hands of my classmates, but a few incidents really stick out:

One group of girls was lower in the social pecking order, so I could get away with sitting near them -- though not with them since they mostly ignored me or were mean to me. One day the ring leader, who was a very bossy type, started telling me that I couldn't sit near them, that the space was saved for her imaginary friend. I ignored her at first, then brushed it off, but everyone else started sticking up for this “imaginary friend” who was going to come and eat lunch with them and needed my seat. I finally gave up and ran out of the lunch room, crying so hard I started to panic and hyperventilate.

Another time, a church group came in and handed out Bibles to everyone, despite the fact that my school was supposed to be non-denominational. I opted not to take one since it was a New Testament Bible. Later, on the playground, everyone was reading their Bibles, and one kid asked me why I didn't have one. I tried to explain that I was Jewish, and he said, “Well that means you're going to Hell.” The best part was that a teacher lectured the kid about using bad language, while ignoring the obvious insult to my faith.

One girl was obsessed with talking about me having cooties. Any time I accidentally brushed up against her she would scream, “Oh my God, Jessica gave me cooties!”

One boy called me assorted names that were all variations on the word “prostitute.” The worst part was that when I told a teacher, she not only didn't do anything about it, but later claimed to forget I ever told her about it. The second worst thing: the principal promised my mother that the boy would be forced to apologize to me, but he never did. The third worst thing? The kid in question was from a family so very rich and powerful that the school's street was named after them. Anyone connecting the dots?

One day I was reading a book and minding my own business when a really nasty girl took a three-hole punch, emptied out all the little punched paper circles in my hair, and made jokes about how I had dandruff.

What do all these kids have in common, besides making my life a living hell? They all now want to be my friends on Facebook.

For those who don't know, Facebook (www.facebook.com) is a website where you can post a profile of yourself and connect with friends. I made a profile about a year and a half ago, and it has been a bizarre social experiment to see all these kids come out of the woodwork. I hadn't seen or spoken to any of them in nearly five years. And to be fair, most switched from picking on me to ignoring my existence by the time we reached ninth grade.

Still, I don't know what instinct makes people seek me out and want to be my fake friend online. Do any of them regret their past actions? Are they curious about what I'm doing with my life, now that I've been out of high school for five years? Or are they just obsessed with having everyone they ever knew in their life as a friend on Facebook?

The funny thing is that during those terrible years one of my favorite fantasies -- besides becoming a famous writer/actress and dating Leonardo DiCaprio -- was becoming a famous writer/actress/director who would triumphantly return to my class reunion with Leonardo DiCaprio. I would be fabulous and I'd snub everyone who ever hurt my feelings. (Which would probably leave me with about 2 people to talk to.)

The reality is that I'm not famous, Leonardo DiCaprio still hasn't called me, and I will probably never go to a class reunion. At least maybe not until my tenth year reunion when I have published a Nobel Prize-winning book about my terrible adolescent years, and can really snub my ex-classmates because I'll have exposed their terrible behavior in an award-winning book.

Or I can try to put it all behind me and just let my old bullies be my fake friends on the Internet, because maybe living well is the best revenge.

Please, Sit With Us

2007-11-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

Do have a seat. We need to tell you why we're so pleased with ourselves and with you, so stop fiddling around this instant and give us your full attention.

We met our goal. We published a schoolyard story every single day during October. Our book will be ready to go in less than two weeks. And this is all thanks to you: our esteemed readers and writers, our survivors and encounterers of schoolyard confusion.

If you consider that only six weeks ago Shan fell off the coffee wagon and called up Jen, blathering on with caffeine-induced, hallucinatory intensity about her newest idea: a project called Can I Sit With You? that could both share schoolyard stories to help some of our kids and raise money for our special ed PTA to help our other kids oh please pretty please? then our success is even more remarkable. (As is the fact that Jen agreed to do it, given her talent, schedule, and how much her skills are worth in the open market.)

In general: yay!

We're going to be in book production mode for the next ten days, and so will only publish two or three stories during that time. In the interim, here are some of our most popular stories, just in case you missed them:

The Real Meaning of Might by Amanda Jones
Love Hurts by Sarah Glover
The Sound of Musicals by Michael Procopio

The book will be here before you know it. There will be more trumpeting at that point, in addition to reminders that it will be the perfect holiday gift for every person you've ever known. Please stay tuned, spread the word, and comment. We'll always save a seat for you.

Sunday Short: Left Out

2007-11-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

by Victoria Davis
Age 11 at the time

The little girl sat at the edge of the classroom -- sensing the excitement but knowing her only form of participation could be observation. Squeals of delight came from the popular corner as white and pink tissue paper flew from the gift boxes wrapped in lots of curly ribbon.

Oh, she would get a gift too. But if she squealed it would be met with ridicule and various mimicking of whatever sound she made.

No, life was better for her if she was invisible. Teachers were oblivious or chose to tune out her peer-enforced solitude.

She loved people. She loved to tell jokes and laugh. But right now in this classroom -- she was the only joke. What would she do wrong today? Oh, it would be something.

And she'd see these girls at church again on Sunday with their curls, angelic smiles, and stockings, looking like the apples of their moms' eyes. Not saying anything, they would steal glances at one another as she spoke up in Sunday School -- oh, what fun they'd have tomorrow about this lesson!

And yet, there was one place she could go with complete acceptance. Her mother and father adored her and enveloped her in their respect, love, and care the moment she came home.

And -- in her room at night -- she'd open her Bible and read of her Saviour. He was a "man of sorrows." Enemies hung on his every word looking for their next point of contention with him. This man -- this Jesus -- knew what it felt like to be alone, to be made fun of even in church. To be left out and not fit in. He understands. He knows.

And snuggled under her covers beside a small lamp in the darkness, they met in conversation, talked about their day, and became best friends.

From the Bleachers

2007-11-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Els Kushner
Age 13 at the time

In 7th grade, I got a crush on my French teacher. A huge, yearning, painful crush. On my female French teacher. It hit me like a truck, and it was terrifying. Particularly so because I read a lot and knew exactly what it was called if these sorts of feelings for people of the same gender continued; I had it on good authority that they could be Just a Phase, and I hoped fervently that they were.

See, all those advice books for adolescents -- the ones with questions supposedly from Real Teens about things like menstruation and pubic hair -- always included a question from some poor soul along the lines of "I think I have a crush on my best friend, s/he's a girl/boy and so am I, does this mean I'm gay?" To which the answer was always something like, "Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being gay. But don't worry [emphases mine] about your crush on your friend; it's perfectly normal for heterosexual teens to have feelings like this..." and blah blah blah. It was supposed to be reassuring but was actually confusing: if there was nothing wrong with being gay, what was there to worry about, with the crushes on friends? Why the need for reassurance? Anyone would smell a rat.

In 8th grade, I tried to put the whole emotional mess behind me and concerned myself with the standard teenage-girl nerd things: reading the Foundation trilogy, writing in my Notebook, and trying not to get beat up by mean kids.

The mean kids were really, really mean. Especially Noelle Johnson, who was constantly threatening to beat me up because I was so bad at volleyball. Noelle was one of those girls who were mysteriously allowed to spend every gym class sitting on the bleachers, gossiping and making obnoxious comments. (And you have to wonder: why did she care about me? I wasn't even on her team!)

One day Noelle ventured down from the bleachers again. I figured she was going to give me yet another hard time about how my inability to spike the ball was going to lead to my imminent demise at her hands. Instead, she stared at me, hard, and demanded accusingly, "Are you a lesbian?"

My jaw dropped. My first impulse -- honestly, I was this nerdy -- was to say something like, "How am I supposed to know if I'm a lesbian? I'm only thirteen! No one can know if they're a lesbian when they're thirteen! All the books say so! I'm waiting to see. Ask me again in a few years." But even I knew that that would've been a Big Mistake. Though, in retrospect, maybe not worse than what I did say, which was (after a few seconds during which all the above thoughts flashed through my mind) a bare and unconvincing "No!"

As it was, she stared at me for a couple more seconds, while all her friends went "ooooooh!" with that rising inflection indicating a fight's about to start. But nothing happened. She made a few more remarks about how dumb I was and went back to the bleachers.

I went back to the volleyball game, shaken. How had she known to ask? How??

Now I think that she probably just randomly picked the most damning accusation she could come up with. But at the time it was so scary and creepy, like she could see inside my thoughts. If she could do that when I wasn’t even sure how I felt, what would happen if I decided that I really was gay? It was too terrible to contemplate, so I put it all firmly out of my mind.

Or rather, I did the best I could. A year or two later, in unrequited love with my best friend and trying to decide what “counted” as being in love, I remember writing something like this in my notebook:

"Am I gay? I know I'm in love with Z. But does that mean I'm a lesbian? I'm really too young to decide something like that! When I'm maybe 20, if I still feel like this about girls, then I'll decide I really am. But I can't know now."

And that’s more or less what I did: I waited until college, when nobody I knew was threatening to beat anyone up, and it didn’t matter how good anyone was at volleyball, and I didn’t feel like my whole world would come tumbling down with one simple “yes.”

In the decades since then, most people in my life -- my friends and family and even the people I work with -- have been just fine with who I am and who I love. Even my daughter says that no one at school gives her a hard time about having two moms. I know it’s not like that for everyone, and I feel really lucky.

At times I wish I’d had the courage to come out sooner, at least to myself. Sometimes, now, I wish that when Noelle Johnson asked me that question, I'd said "Yes!," swept her into my arms, and given her a big smooch in front of the whole gym class. It would have made for a much better story, even though I probably would've gotten suspended and beaten up.

And at other times I think I was right and smart to wait until it felt safe for me. Life isn’t just a story when you’re living it, after all. It’s easy for me now, safe in my grownup life, to wonder whether it’s worse to get hurt, or worse to live scared that you might get hurt. Some kids who come out as teenagers did and do get hurt, in real and lasting ways, and I escaped most of that.

But you know what's weird? No one ever did actually beat me up, even though they spent much of 8th grade threatening to. I didn’t even exactly know what “beaten up” meant, even though I spent most of 8th grade being afraid of it.

I do wish I’d been able, somehow, to not be so scared of something that hadn’t even happened to me. And to let myself decide for myself what I felt, and what it meant, and what counted as real.

Spitting Image

2007-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

by John H. Kim
Age 10 at the time

Fifth grade was a low point in my life. I had finally made some friends in third grade, and gotten through fourth. Then we moved to the other side of the mountain, to a huge, run-down old house overlooking the Hudson River. My parents had bought it as a fixer-upper, and I think got a real deal. It had a four-and-a-half acre mostly wooded lot, with a garage that used to be an old stable. There were no other houses for quite a distance, which made it kind of lonely.

We lived off highway 9W instead of a regular street, so the school bus didn't stop near our house. I walked to school instead, which was only a quarter-mile if I cut through our enormous mountain lot to the dead end of Franklin Street. This involved trekking through a wide grassy path through the woods, past an old swimming pool. The walk was bearable some days, but when I had orchestra practice and had to lug my French horn, it was a real pain.

I had a hard time adjusting to the new school. I missed my friends Mark and Jason, and would call them on the phone a lot. At some point into the school year I finally invited someone from orchestra over to our house. I can't remember his name anymore. I remember he played a woodwind of some sort, certainly something a lot lighter to lug to my house than a French horn.

When he came over, my mother was home. She brought us some snacks, then we looked through my stuff and around the house. We didn't talk about anything in particular, and didn't play games like I did with my old friends. Then we went outside to the big yard. The garden was still probably a mess, but it was big. Suddenly, he got mad over something, and yelled, "The problem with you is that you think you're the spitting image of your mother!" Then he stalked off.

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

I couldn't recall exactly what we had been talking over, but it didn't seem to involve my mother. I cast my mind in all directions, trying to think what it could mean. Was it some sort of clever dig at my looks? I hated clever insults, or rather I hated being embarrassed for not understanding them. Was it a play on words, something about "spitting"? Insults often seem to invoke mothers.

Then something occurred to me. My mother was white, and my father was Korean. Did that have something to do with it? I still didn't understand why he said that, but it did seem to make a sort of sense. In fact, I realized he was right. I didn't think of myself as Korean at all. I didn't interact with my father much, so most of my mannerisms came from my mother.

Still, it was a puzzle. My visitor was white, but I think he was from an immigrant family of some sort, maybe Eastern European. What would make him say that? I couldn't remember what would prompt that, but then, I didn't remember much about what we talked about anyway. As far as I can remember, we didn't talk or hang out after that for the rest of the year. I certainly never asked him what he meant by it, or what made him say it.

It did make me think about a lot of things. I still remembered some of the popular chants from elementary school. One was "A fight! A fight! A nigger and a white!" Another was "Chinese; Japanese; Dirty knees; Look at these!" -- done pushing up and down your eyebrows, then pulling out your shirt like breasts. I didn't understand what was behind those rhymes as I thought about what he had said, but I somehow knew they were related.

I made it through the rest of the year at that middle school, but I never made any friends. The next year, my parents put me in a private prep school across the river. It was a long bus ride, but the bus would stop at our house. Some things changed, but others didn't. I still didn't think of myself as Korean for the most part, but sometimes I would stop and think about the incident, and my image.

All's Fair In Love and Mucus

2007-10-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

by SJ Alexander
Age 12 at the time

I grew up in a small town outside of Chicago where the summers were so hot it felt like your skin was about to melt off and you would be happy because you suspected you would be cooler that way, and the winters were so cold your freshly-washed hair would freeze solid at the bus stop.

This was the end of the eighties, during the last gasp of the big poodle hair craze. In the eighth grade I had my crazy tangle out front teased up until it could ensnare low-flying bats. I was so proud of it! This, combined with my tendency to carelessly leave the house with the back of my hair still wet, and my fetching gigantic hoop earrings that could double as a belt in a pinch, meant I wasn't one to wear a wooly hat. So, I was sick all the time, all winter long, and I tend to think that there was a relationship between my constant sickness and my habits.

Despite being smart overall (other than the hat thing), I was in the Math Facts for Complete Morons that year, which felt like torture to me. There was not a bone in my body or a dusty, forgotten corner of my brain that could make me retain math, I'm sorry to say. Even in college when I was required to take algebra and I did every extra assignment, studied hard, and stayed after to get help from the teacher, I barely squeaked by with a B. Now I'm pretty good with "practical" math, such as grocery store deals and restaurant tipping, but I was hopeless in those days. So there I was for the 4,000th time, studying basic math facts again.

Fact: I was deeply, deeply bored.

Fortunately, I had something else to focus on: I was completely in love with the boy who was across the room from me. I could stare at him for the whole hour, because our desks were broken up into two groups of rows that faced each other, with a big aisle down the middle. I was almost right across from him, but one row over, so lucky for me no one was blocking the view of his utter handsomeness.

Rather than fussing with fractions, I studied this boy. I noticed how many times in a week he wore his favorite sweater (orange with a snowflake pattern) and if he had gotten is hair cut (bowl cut to shorter bowl cut). Once he was out sick for three days, leaving me alone to twist and fidget in my seat as if I was being burned at the math stake.

Yearly, usually in January, the whole school would be hit by that coughy-phlegmy plague that lingers for weeks. I had an unsympathetic mother who would pretty much only let me stay home if there was good, solid evidence I was currently bleeding from a major artery or nonstop rocket-style vomiting. So there I was in my math class, at that stage of the cold where you feel like you need to sneeze constantly.

Fact: Middle school girls often find normal bodily functions embarrassing.

The whole class sat quietly, working on some math problems that were assigned in-class. I had the most tortuous tickle -- it was as if the entire contents of my head were trying to escape. If only I was at home and could sneeze and blow until I felt better. But no. If I did that in class that would mean my classmates would know I was human, and did disgusting things like sneeze. If I couldn't even sneeze, then noseblowing was ABSOLUTELY out of the question.

I kept holding my sneezes in, making pathetic little "Eep! Eep!" noises as I held them back, feeling more and more as if my head would pop. I would not be caught dead carrying something as practical and grandma-like as tissues, so even as I began to wish I had some, I continued suffering in squeaky near-silence. Some people, bored to death of their basic math facts, leaned over to whisper, "Bless you." My math teacher had even thoughtfully provided a box of tissues on the corner of his desk for student use, but there was no way I was going to parade across the room in front of the boy I liked and fire up the schnozz trumpet.

Desperately, I began to consider my options. Could I make it up to the front and whisper for permission to go to the bathroom? I didn't think so. My eyes were so watery that the math problems on the paper in front of me were beginning to blur and swim. I was going to ... OH NO.

Fact: I was totally hosed.

"WHAA-CHOOOOO!" I lost it, breaking the heavy mathy silence that blanketed the classroom. I clapped my hand, covered with the too-long sleeve of my sweatshirt, over my upper lip, mouth, and chin which were all now densely covered with a shiny snot goatee.

I froze where I was, and glanced around furtively. A couple more "Bless yous" were tossed my way. No one seemed to be paying attention. Even the teacher was busy marking our pop quizzes from that morning. With trepidation, I looked across the room. There was the object of my secret love, brows knitted, working away at his math problem. Whew. Sleeve still in place, I hunched down over my work and tried to figure out what to do next as my face burned. At least I could see my paper again.

I scraped off a little bit of the snot goatee at a time. To this day, I think it was probably the most fluid that has come out of my head, ever. I thought, could I hide under my hands and ask for permission to go to the bathroom now? No. Even more embarrassing now that my face had exploded. I kept working away at it a little bit at a time. To my horror and deepening panic, the part of the sleeve I was working on became totally saturated and I had to roll the snot up inside my sleeve. I turned to the other sleeve, lamenting the fact that it was my favorite sweatshirt (I thought it was hilarious: "I think, therefore, I party," plus it was big, warm, and comfortable). Would this ruin it? I still kept glancing up at the boy I was crushed out on across the way, who, as usual, did not notice I existed.

Finally, my face was dry again and my sleeves were rolled up almost all the way to my elbows. I was saved! I didn't think there was anything left on my face, but I touched it repeatedly to make sure. I congratulated myself on my cleverness.

Then, setting his pencil down, my crush nonchalantly slid his chair back and stood up from his desk. He strolled across the room and took a tissue out of the box on the teacher's desk and quietly blew his nose with his back to the class.

Oh, DISGUSTING. How could he get up and blow his nose in front of the whole room like that? It was at that moment that I noticed he had kind of a funny-shaped head and ... was that a boil next to his nose? I, the girl with her own snot ensconced inside not one but both sleeves, discovered that I did not love this boy as much as I thought. Love is fickle that way, I guess.

The Sound of Musicals

2007-10-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Michael Procopio
Age 6 to the present

The men in my family loved show tunes. My grandfather, being of Italian stock, listened to opera. My father preferred Broadway musicals. Original cast albums like Cinderella, Camelot, A Chorus Line, and Annie followed us wherever we traveled in his car. My older brother loved big movie musicals, specifically those produced by Arthur Freed and his friends at Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios. Most directly influenced by him, I learned to converse in a language liberally peppered with musical references. We compared the events of our own lives to those which occurred in the movies, usually unfavorably, since it is often difficult to make homework and cleaning up after dogs more interesting than dancing around pirate ships or singing with Munchkins.

In my family, a boy singing songs from The Sound of Music was nothing extraordinary-- in fact, it was encouraged. The subtle changing of lyrics to suit any occasion was applauded by my elder brother. Sadly, singing "I Am Six, Going on Seven" in a voice approximating that of the eldest Von Trapp girl did not translate well to the playground of my elementary school. Worse, my impression of Ann-Margret's frenzied "Smash the Mirror" number from Tommy was not received with applause but with baffled silence, then derisive laughter, which I found confusing since my brother and sister had both loved the impression as I performed it the day before. Upon review some thirty years later, it seems reasonable that a six-year-old boy writhing on the on the grass and pulling at his hair while singing in an exaggerated vibrato might make other little boys uncomfortable. It was clear to them that I was different. It was clear to me that they simply did not speak my language.

By the second grade, my performances were much more subtle; intended for more intimate audiences. To offset the boredom of a long bus ride to Olvera Street in Los Angeles, I decided to entertain my field trip seat mate with what I thought was a subdued interpretation of Esther Williams' playful version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." The boy sitting next to me had always been kind and therefore, I thought, deserving of my talents. Far from being entertained, he squirmed and moved as far away as he could from me without physically hurling himself from the bus. I thought he'd get it. I thought he'd understand. In a way, I think he did. I don't think he spoke to me again until the third grade. I rode the rest of the way to Los Angeles in silence; my status as a resident alien confirmed.

There were few opportunities to further humiliate myself since I did not sit with other boys at lunch or get invited to their houses after school or even play with them unless compelled to in group sports like dodgeball wherein they sharpened their throwing skills and I perfected my dodging abilities.

If a boy admits to liking show tunes, he invites trouble. If a boy who likes show tunes also admits to dreaming about taking bubble baths with Michael Landon, he invites danger. To my mind, liking musicals seemed a perfectly normal, masculine thing. Blowing kisses to the shadow I saw in the shape of Mr. Landon cast by my night light every evening did not. I'd never heard of another boy doing that, so I kept my mouth shut, which felt unnecessary, since everyone seemed to know anyway.

Names like "girl" and "sissy" were first muttered and then shouted at me. As we got a little older, the words "fag" and "homo" entered the vocabulary. I objected to "girl" since I had no desire to be one, Ann-Margret impression aside. "Sissy" I wasn't so sure about-- I was bigger and faster than most of my taunters, but I was mildly obsessed with people like Charo and activities such as watching Days of Our Lives. By the time fifth grade came and the abandoned fantasies of Michael Landon were replaced by thoughts of holding hands with a tall Brazilian-Swedish boy, I knew my taunters were speaking the truth when they called me a homo; I don't think they meant as a compliment.

The name-calling eventually lead to physical threats. The occasional sock in the arm or leg stuck out to trip graduated to stomach-punching and being shoved against walls. Once cornered in the library by one of the meanest boys I knew, I pleaded with him to leave me alone and warned him of the nearby presence of our school librarian. He laughed and suggested I cry to her as he punched me in the stomach. I weighed my options and decided the best course of action
was to bury my fist in his eye. I was surprised by how much my hand hurt. That never seemed to happen to people in the movies. The following year, the boy was placed in a classroom for children with learning disabilities. I briefly worried that I had caused his brain damage. At least, I thought, he wouldn't be bothering me again. For the most part, no one else did either.

The rest of my elementary school career was spent rather quietly. When forced to play soccer with my classmates, my attention turned to the nearby boundary fence covered in honeysuckle vines. Whenever the vines were in bloom, the class broke from play to swarm the flowers. I'd hum Lena Horne's version of "Honeysuckle Rose" from Thousands Cheer quietly and to myself, since I didn't think anyone would appreciate the fact that I had a song for nearly every occasion. Or understand. Except my brother. I'd tell him, since he was the only person I knew who spoke 'Musical' better than I did. As long as I had him to talk to when I got home from school, I remained relatively untroubled by my scholastic isolation.

When I was 12, three major events occurred that altered the course of my social life: I started middle school, entered into an aggressive attack of puberty and my brother moved to France, where he could watch musicals in French, thus combining two of his greatest passions. Though the news he sent of Gene Kelly dancing and singing with Catherine Deneuve made me nearly faint from excitement, our conversations were few, given the physical distance between us. The combination of being in a new school environment with a rapidly changing body and no brother to confide in made the issue of my own social awkwardness more acute. Since my body and voice had decided change without first consulting me, I decided I might as well go for broke, and change my personality too. Twelve-year-olds are famous for that.

I watched the other puberty-stricken people around me, noting what they wore and what they listened to and eventually learned how to be more like them, to blend in. Never entirely, but enough to be accepted, be invited to parties, and allowed to sit with others at lunch. Instead of humming Cole Porter tunes in public, I started tapping my feet to Adam and the Ants, the Go-Go's, and other musicians favored by 'tweens in 1982. I learned to speak the language of the people around me, to enter their world and shed some of my former reputation as an alien. I succeeded to some degree-- gaining friends and higher social status, but I never felt that I could be completely myself around anyone. On the outside, I could appear as normal-- whatever that was-- as I wanted to be. Inwardly, I felt like an alien passing for human. The names Judy Garland and Fred Astaire never passed my lips in public, no matter how much I wanted them to.

As I got older and entered college, I found what I had secretly given up hope of ever finding-- people my age who spoke openly of Leslie Caron, Alice Faye and Donald O'Conner. People who spoke my language. People like me. And they didn't look like aliens, but rather attractive human beings who were proud of being different from 90% of the general population. Eventually, I learned to look upon my show tune-loving tendencies as a source of pride. Now, I sometimes sing them out loud specifically to annoy people. In fact, if you happen to walk through my neighborhood today and you listen very carefully, you might hear a bit of Mary Poppins, Meet Me in St. Louis, or the sound of other musicals coming from the open window of my home and me singing right along with them. I don't really care who hears it. Unless it's playing too loudly during my downstairs neighbor's nap time. It's one thing to have fun annoying people from time to time, but it's an entirely other thing to be rude to one's neighbors.

The Real Meaning of Might

2007-10-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Amanda Jones
Age 8 at the time

I had a pedestrian, mildly tortured school experience learning to sort between what mattered and what didn’t, with just the typical betrayals and embarrassments. It was my brother who suffered the brunt of pre-teen flailing, and watching what he went through taught me more than all the bullying I endured.

Marco was (and still is) my sweet older brother. As a child he was scrawny, friendly, funny, affectionate, and energetic. And he had Williams Syndrome, which meant he was a special needs kid. Only in those days no one had yet thought up political correctness, so my brother was just “retarded.”

Williams Syndrome is a genetic disorder with a long, scary list of symptoms. When I look up the most common of them, it says: “Unusual facial structure, developmental retardation, short stature, heart problems, and puffiness around the eyes. Personality traits include being overtly friendly, trusting strangers, and an affinity for music.” My brother had all of these. He still does.

For most of elementary school other children were kind to Marco. They included him in games and they’d even willingly invite him to their birthday parties. But at age 12 this swiftly changed. As hormones began their insidious creep, many friendships turned into outright cruelty.

My brother and I did not go to school together. He went to an all-boys school, and I went to an all-girls. But we lived opposite a park and would go there together almost daily. I was three years younger. He was my only sibling, my big brother, my friend, and often my rival and archenemy. I loved him. I didn’t know to be embarrassed of him, even when he laughed inappropriately loudly or let fly with the animal noises he was prone to making when overexcited. But as he got older he would embarrass the other kids, as if just knowing him made them uncool.

One awful day my mother was called to school early, bringing Marco home with red eyes even puffier than normal. Two former friends had cornered him and beaten him up in the bathroom, calling him Mongol, circus freak, animal. He could not understand what had happened, and his face registered only confusion and disorientation. And for the first time in my life I felt real, adult rage. It sped through me like fire, closing my throat and making me break out in sweat. I was eight years old and I had just felt the shock of injustice.

Marco stayed home for a week to recover. There were hushed phone calls and the low hum of my mother’s fury venting into the mouthpiece. Marco and I lived alone with our mother. Our father had hit the road with a younger woman when I was five. He couldn’t handle raising a “retard.” At the time I didn’t think much about what it must have taken for my mother to raise the two of us alone for so many years. Now I do, and I am staggered.

A month after the “incident,” Marco and I encountered the perpetrators at our park. My brother flinched when he saw them, his “overt friendliness” damaged. He wanted to go home. He started making noises. His hands came up over his head. The boys, angry that the "retard" had caused them innumerable hours of detention, strode towards him, their fists balling, mouths ugly grimaces. At first fear turned my legs and stomach soft. And then, like some sort of miraculous intervention, the rage hit me again and I became possessed. I raced towards the boys yelling words that had never dared cross my lips before.

“You bastards.” (I’d heard my mother call my absent father that often and suspected it was a terrible slight.)

“You stupid, mean little bastards. You assholes. You keep away from my brother!”

And my God, it worked. It actually worked. The boys didn’t know what to do next. They stopped, their faces froze and they stood there looking just like stupid little assholes.

The best part of all is that my brother started to laugh. He laughed his inappropriately loud laugh with a few animal noises thrown in for good measure. The boys sloped off, vanquished, with that sound at their backs. It was wonderful. Admittedly I was an eight-year-old girl and even mean boys probably knew better than to beat up on a small female child, but it was the first genuinely empowering moment of my life. And I guess I learned that it was actually possible to stand up against injustice.

Many years later, I used my brother shamelessly as an acid test for the men I dated. If they were embarrassed of my brother or they were mean or ignored him (and most did), they didn’t last long. They were filed in the “stupid asshole” category and dispatched. And then I met a guy who was different. He didn’t deal with Marco like he was retarded. He wasn’t overly condescending or patronizing or even sickly solicitous. He treated him like an adult who liked to laugh loudly, hug people, and dance erratically. He called him Big Man, which made Marco’s skeletal chest swell with pride. Greg was doing an MBA at an elite business school filled with future captains of industry who wore button-down shirts. One night, he invited Marco and me to a party with his fellow students. I was edgy, thinking that my brother’s unbridled enthusiasm for singing and dancing, or even the animal noises, might cause a scene, and I really liked Greg and didn’t want to have to dispatch him quite so quickly.

When we got there, Greg casually took Marco around, introducing him not as his girlfriend’s brother, but as his “buddy.” He gave Marco a beer and let him loose. Hours later, from across the room, I noticed a circle forming on the dance floor. With rising dread, I broke through the crowd to face what was happening. Marco and Greg were both lying on their backs, spinning in circles, breakdancing to “Red, Red Wine” by UB40. The crowd cheered and clapped and my brother hooted and glowed. Marco had found a hero, and I had found a husband.

I guess the moral to this story is that in the end, it’s much cooler not to be a stupid, mean bastard.

Sunday Short: Fish Face

2007-10-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

by elswhere
Age 13 at the time

I was a nerd in junior high school, but my friend A. was even worse off. She was new in town, she wore weird clothes, and her family didn’t have any money. She looked funny, too; all the kids called her “fish face.”

In spite of these strikes against her, A. was mysteriously self-confident. In 8th grade, she decided to run for Student Council vice-president. I was aghast: everyone knew Student Council was just a popularity contest, and A. was anything but popular. What was she thinking?!

But A. didn’t seem worried. She made posters, campaigned, did everything a Student Council candidate was supposed to do. Just as if she had a chance.

On the morning of the election, the whole school gathered in the auditorium to hear the candidates’ speeches. One after another, the candidates for treasurer and secretary stood at the podium and read carefully rehearsed banalities about how they would dedicate themselves to improving the school.

Finally, it was A.’s turn. My stomach clenched. I was mortified for her already. She was sure to say something weird, and even if she didn’t, just her being who she was and standing up in front of everyone was sure to be social suicide. It was bad enough that she got teased and harassed in the halls and at lunch: how much worse could it be to see her humiliate herself in front of the entire school?

A. stood up and approached the podium. The room rang out with hoots and whistles and cries of “Fish Face!” until the principal made everyone be quiet. A. waited patiently for silence, then began her to read her speech.

“Some of you call me Fish Face,” she said.

Pandemonium erupted! Once again the principal called for silence. When it was quiet enough for her to be heard, A. calmly continued her speech. She talked about how regardless of names people called her, the important thing was whether she would get things done on the Student Council. She talked about changes that needed to be made, and about her ideas for making them. She talked about how everyone said that Student Council was just a popularity contest, but that this was our chance to prove them wrong.

Everywhere in the halls that day, you heard the words, “Fish Face.” “Fish Face!” Nobody could believe it. Nobody could believe she’d had the guts. Nobody could stop talking about it.

A. won the election.

The Survey

2007-10-26T00:01:00.001-07:00

by Alison Weiss
Age 12 at the time

It’s 1975 in Southern California, and I have entered junior high. “Love Will Keep Us Together” blasts from every car stereo, and it never really gets cold enough to wear a coat. I begin to understand what the Beach Boys mean by endless summer, even though I’m not the kind of beach babe the Beach Boys sing about. At age twelve, I’m thin with pale skin, straight black hair, and wire-framed glasses that are perpetually bent and sliding down my nose.

My family and I have landed in this beach town after stunning bad luck. My parents’ dream to run an alcoholism treatment center has failed utterly after less than a year. In short order, they have lost everything they own and are living in a rental house with me and my four sisters. My father is gone every weekend to make money. My mother works full time as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. During our first six weeks in L.A., my youngest sister gets hit by a car and spends all summer in a body cast and then a wheel chair.

There is no money for clothes. My grandmother has learned to sew and specializes in quick-and-easy polyester. Each girl is given a huge bag of my grandmother’s creations. I start 7th grade in a powder blue polyester pantsuit. People ask me so many times that first day who made my outfit that by the time the last bell rings, I’ve taken to lying that I bought it at Orbach’s department store.

It’s hard enough to learn to navigate through Oceanview Junior High’s long halls, but I’m doing it alone. I want something that is out of my reach: a friend. Not a group of friends, that’s way beyond hope, but I’ll take a friend. It doesn’t even have to be a best friend, just a friend to save me a seat in class. I can’t impress people with my athletic skills because I’m terrible at sports, and I’m already out of the running with my homemade wardrobe. The only thing I think I have is that I’m smart. So, I do the unthinkable, I actually show my intelligence. I write ten-page reports for Science class. In English, the teacher chooses my poem to read out loud. For a while, my academic success carries me -- and then it takes me straight to hell.

It starts out as an ordinary day. In social studies, I raise my hand too often, answering a question correctly that Christy gets wrong -- Christy, who is the leader of a gaggle of girls, and who doesn’t like to be embarrassed. She gets perky, sporty Jax, her second lieutenant, to take me down. Without catching the attention of our teacher (who has tired hair and always reeks of cigarettes) Jax starts passing around a note, some kind of survey. It makes its surreptitious way around the classroom, and there is lots of giggling. It doesn’t reach me before the bell rings.

The next period is math. I slide into my seat, and Jax walks by, casually slipping the survey onto my desk. It’s my turn, I think, to see what everyone was laughing about. There is only one question on the survey: Who thinks Alison is a geek? My eyes slide down the paper, and I see that all my classmates have signed it with cruel embellishments, “She’s the geekiest.” “She stinks.” “She’s greasy.” My stomach drops and I almost stop breathing. I dig my nails into my palm to stop from crying, but it doesn’t work. I have never felt more alone. There is not one safe person in the room.

And the worst part of this story? I will keep that survey rolled up in my nightstand drawer to take out and re-read. I will not lose my sense of utter loneliness for years.

Lisp

2007-10-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Aruni Wijesinghe
Elementary School

Every other Thursday afternoon
The year I am in third grade
William O. Schaeffer Elementary
I go to speech therapy to have my lisp corrected

Small cinderblock room no bigger than a closet
Across the hall from the library
Wendy, Andrew Mallon and I meet with the school speech therapist
A middle-aged woman with thick calves and
Perfect elocution
We spend forty minutes reciting words
Full of serpentine “s” sounds
Brows knitted in concentration above pursed child-mouths
Soft susurration accompanies the sound of
Rubber-soled Keds squeaking against industrial gray linoleum

Brightly colored placards glare down at us
Cartoon mouths grimace
Illustrate the proper shapes of vowels
Bite off bits of consonants

The speech therapist is well intentioned
She wills my unruly tongue to repent
Coaxes unwilling s’s from behind
Bared baby teeth

She never realizes
She has been mispronouncing my name since the beginning of the school year
Elongating vowels, misplacing accents
Anglifying the music of my ancient Sanskrit name

I am too ashamed to correct her.

Khaki

2007-10-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Meredith Lom
Age 6 - 12 at the time

When I was little, one girl in my grade school class was the boss of all the other little girls. There was nothing special about her, really, save for being the youngest daughter in a big Mormon family; but in my town, even that wasn't exceptional.

Her parents had even given her the most boring name in the book -- they'd named her Khaki. She was one of those impossibly tiny creatures whose hair and skin were all the same translucent color. She was the pied piper of the playground, and since all the little girls had "friend crushes" on her, she was always successful in getting them to do her bidding.

One time, I invited her over to play on a Saturday, and she accepted, and the parental dance had been done, and she came over to my house. She and her mother pulled up in their yellow convertible (which was roughly the same color as her hair and skin). They found me playing in the yard. I was probably a mess like I was most Saturdays, being something of a tomboy. My father, then a dark-haired thirty-something with a preference for short red running shorts with white piping (which, come to think of it, were actually in fashion at that point), had been cursing and sweating and clipping the lawn.

Khaki and her mother took one look at the mess of us out there and climbed back into their hideous car. Her mother said, loudly, "Come along, Khaki, we don’t play with these kind of people.” And they left.

For the rest of grade school, Khaki was the master of my social demise -- of my not getting invited to birthday parties; of my not being included; of my not being asked to wear the same outfit as the other little girls on the same day. Khaki was vicious. The little girls would all do musicals together, under Khaki's direction, and I would not be included. I would watch, in quiet horror, as she would distribute invitations to come to her parties, and events, and shows, in our classes -- and deliberately skip past my desk. I was paralyzed by the exclusion.

I would say to the teacher, “Don’t you think it’s unfair that she doesn’t invite everyone?” And year after year, the teachers would look at me blankly, as if to tell me that unfairness was just part of growing up. Maybe that was true, and it was a painful lesson that we all had to learn. But that didn’t make it any easier when Khaki passed my desk, handing out candy hearts to the rest of the class. She would smile at me as she passed, polite as ever, but never once stopped to place a Valentine in my heart-shaped holiday folder. Being left out of her circle was heartbreaking.

Khaki’s family moved away to Utah by sixth grade. The other little girls threw her a lavish going away party at someone’s backyard pool. They handed out invitations on the last day of fifth grade. By that time, our public school had instituted a rule that if students were going to distribute invitations in the classroom, they would have to invite the whole class. So the girls handed out the coveted envelopes on the playground. I was grateful that I didn’t get one. I never remembered being quite so relieved to see someone go.

Years later, after I'd forgotten about Khaki entirely, I bumped into her by chance. I was a college student, and she was working at the local convenience store. "My parents said I could come out here for a year and try to make it as a backup dancer!" she exclaimed, happy to see me. But seeing her, I felt like I had been cheated. I had expected her to go on and do something fabulous and breathtaking. I had expected her to be the boss of all of Los Angeles. In reality, she was a store clerk, just trying to make a living.

She was tall, no longer impossibly tiny, and her hair was no longer yellow, rather a colorless grey. She had bumpy, red skin, a bad haircut, and a round face. She was not an attractive grownup. I smiled, and nodded, and paid for my granola bars and cheese, then ran back to my dorm room to join my friends for a party. Khaki was not invited.

The Sex Change of Zyax II

2007-10-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Liz Henry
Age 10 at the time

Almost every day in 4th grade my best friend Laurie Arminia and I would run outside to play under the geodesic dome monkeybars at recess. We'd comb through the sand with our fingers and explain to each other where everything was in our space city, and where the farms were, and the roads. I'd look up to see Laurie lost in thought with sand in her hands, her thick black hair flying around like a Shetland pony's mane. The grey steel monkeybar dome overhead saved our space colony people from the poison atmosphere of Planet Zyax, which we had named after a book called "The Humans of Zyax II". Other people ran around whacking tether balls or playing four-square. Laurie and I were little kids. No one paid any attention to us. We'd climb to the top of the dome and survey our planet like twin gods. Twice a week, instead of going to recess, she and I would stay inside being "library aides", shelving books and helping kindergarteners learn to read. Doesn't it sound like a fairy tale? Too good to be true!

The next year everything changed horribly. My family moved to Houston, Texas, which I had pictured as a sepia-toned dusty Western movie. Perhaps I'd ride my horse to school, tying it up to the hitching post!

That really was too good to be true. Texas was a brutal suburban landscape of malls and golf courses. The 5th grade girls wore 3-inch heels. I was as short as most kindergarteners, still wearing Garanimals, midget-sized Wranglers, and (horrors, for piano recitals) dresses with smocking across the chest. Middle class 5th grade Texas girls in 1980 wore Jordache jeans and couple-skated with boys at the roller rink. I
was in deep trouble.

Luckily, before school started, I met Jennifer, who lived around the block. Though Jennifer was a year younger than me, she became my friend. I'd dial her phone number over and over; I can still hear the song of it in the beeps, 444-6784, 444-6784; a busy signal. Jennifer had a makeup mirror that flipped over and lit up to show what you looked like in night and day lighting, far away or magnified. She had enormous makeup kits. I'd lie on her waterbed (?!) to watch her smear on base, foundation, powder, eyeliner, lip liner, lip stick, mascara, and 5 kinds of eyeshadow while we listened to Prince albums as loud as possible and Jennifer insulted me in ways I didn't understand. "Quit watching me with your beady little roach eyes!" or "I think you're a Mexican, you have squinty eyes like a Mexican." It was as unlike Laurie Arminia as you could get. Jennifer was completely alien. I learned all the words to the Prince songs. Jennifer was like Prince, and David Bowie, with their makeup and thick eyeliner, screaming and posing, dancing on the rim of the bed, all the gleaming album covers and posters and magazines.

One day at recess a horrible girl followed me outside from the "cafetorium". She had been making fun of how I ate my sandwich while reading a book. Cheryl wore suede ankle boots. Her mom's boyfriend took them on ski vacations. Cheryl said that reading was gay, and that I should be named Liz the Lez. To escape her, I went out into the blazing sun of the sidewalk and the heat-shimmered parking lot. Other kids followed us out, hooting. I saw Jennifer's face laughing at me in the crowd. She was chanting with them, "Liz the Lez, Liz the Lez." Someone pointed out that I was about to cry. People were crowding around me, too close, like stampeding animals. I felt sweaty and scared and a little dizzy. Sounds all started to blend together, babbling nonsense sounds, waves or wind or a waterfall over rocks.

Cheryl — with her blond, feathered hair and her disco metallic shirt — came right up into my face really close and went, "Is it true? I heard it was. I heard you used to be a boy, and you got a sex change. That's why you're so flat. You don't wear a bra. And you're like a boy and like boy things. Cause you're really a boy. LEZZIE." I realized then that "Lez" meant lesbian. All the advice my mom and dad had ever given to me, like Just walk away and Just ignore it, flew out of my head. I felt like my body disappeared, and I was like a cloud of light and air. And I said this... in a voice that could rule the world... I'm not making it up:

"That's the dumbest thing I've EVERY HEARD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. How could I have a sex change when I'm only in 5th grade. I'm not even hitting puberty yet. And even if I had a sex change, SO WHAT IF I DID. And if I was a boy, I wouldn't be a lesbian, don't you know anything? And we're little kids, you dumbass, we don't have sex anyway, which is what it means, it's about who you have sex with, I have read about it, and people have the right to do whatever they want because it's a free country, and I believe in free love and I have constitutional rights, and I'm not a lesbian I'm BISEXUAL."

Then my body came back into sweaty existence, and my head came back down onto my body, and I ran into the school and hid in the bathroom and cried so hard that snot ran down the back of my throat and I sort of choked and threw up. I went to the nurse and my mom came to get me. They asked me what happened, so I just said that I threw up after lunch. I spent the rest of the day in bed with an ice-cold towel on my head,
sipping ginger ale, reading science fiction, and feeling very confused.

I was still friends with Jennifer until 9th grade. My mom said that Jennifer was a bad person to be friends with. She wasn't nice. My mom was right, but there was something my mom didn't get. I needed to understand what was the deal with Jennifer.

My life has been something of a variation on that theme ever since.

Dodgeball Saves Lives

2007-10-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Jason Kovacs
Age 10 and 11 at the time

When I was 9 years old me and my dad moved to Ballard because Dad didn't like Black people and Ballard was the only white neighborhood in Seattle where we could afford the rent. The elementary school in Ballard, Benjamin Franklin Day Elementary, was just like the other five elementary schools I'd been to up to that point except that the building was kind of old. It had cloak rooms with banks of hooks at kid-level and a lot of dark wood trim. It had hardwood floors and big windows. The building was a hold-over from the Roosevelt era and so were most of its teachers: old white guys in short sleeve shirts and polyester slacks who sported thick glasses and bad tempers.

The most popular kid in my 4th Grade class, my first class at B.F. Day, was John Hoffman. John was one of those kids who was just good at everything: good at sports, liked all the right music, always knew the answer, perfect handwriting, perfect grades, perfect hair. I didn't really have an opinion bout John per se. There'd been one like him at every school I'd attended and he was as expected, in his way, as the drinking fountain next to the bathrooms. I was busy being the new kid for the sixth time in three years and John was just another kid who didn't want to talk to me. His indifference was more welcome than the taunting of the bullies, but he never said two words to me and what I realized, at some instinctive level, was that whatever else John might have going for him, compassion wasn't on the list.

When the school year ended all us single-parent kids headed for our "off season" parents' places in far away lands and, when I came back the next year, I ended up getting moved to a mixed 5th and 6th grade class that was created three weeks into the school year. Kids were pulled from overcrowded classrooms to make the roster: two kids from each 5th grade class, two kids from each 6th grade class. And three weeks was long enough for teachers to decide who they didn't like, so I ended up in a class full of kids teachers hated.

It was kind of like The Breakfast Club meets The Dirty Dozen. We drove two teachers to quit in less than two weeks. We set one fire that resulted in the entire school being evacuated. And then we got Mr. Cash, a doctrinaire Jim Henson disciple and all around cool guy. We made a tacit decision to keep Mr. Cash, and so my year progressed.

And while I hung out in my class full of reprobates and morons, John Hoffman was in some other class being perfect. Sometimes I'd see the light of his perfection bursting down the hall, like explosions from an Advanced Placement chemistry class. He'd win the spelling bee, or publish an article in the Seattle Times Junior Journalist Program. The teachers talked about him in the hall. He was the superstar.

And me? I learned to make a bomb out of match heads that year.

The only place John and I had anything to do with each other was on the dodgeball court. B.F. Day had a dodgeball tradition that was unique in my public school experience: on the dodgeball court, kids tried to hurt each other. It wasn't just that we threw the balls as hard as we could, or aimed for each other's heads. I think all kids do that. But at B.F. Day we didn't use the standard red rubber dodge ball. At B.F. Day we used soccer balls, basketballs, and what I can only describe as pain balls: a kind of hard plastic ball that stayed spherical through rigidity rather than air pressure. B.F. Day dodgeball was all about the pain, and I was better at it than almost anyone, even John. However, in spite of my aptitude and my love of the game, I was away from the court the day someone broke John's leg with a soccer ball.

Of course I heard about it after the fact, but there wasn't much to the story: someone threw a soccer ball and it hit John in the knee. The whole joint went at once; the knee bent completely backwards and John went down screaming. We talked about it in hushed tones for the rest of the day and the principal said we couldn't play dodgeball with anything harder than a kickball from now. There was some grousing about that but otherwise we were all just amazed that it was possible: how could you break someone's leg with a ball?

The kid who'd done it, Adam Mitchell, was the temporary superstar and undisputed badass of the court for five whole days. Even with kickballs, kids scattered out of the way of his throws like they were dodging freight trains.

John he was out of school for a week before we heard that dodgeball had apparently saved his life. John had cancer and the tumor had weakened the bone in his knee. If it hadn't been for a fast-moving soccer ball the doctors might not have found it in time and he could have died. He was going to lose his leg above the knee, but he would live, and it was dodgeball that had saved him. And this was another kind of notoriety for Adam Mitchell, but he still wasn't too happy about going back to getting picked last for team-ups.

When Mr. Cash related the story of John's knee to us, Gordy raised his hand.

"Yes, Gordy?"

"Does this mean we can play dodgeball with soccer balls again?" Gordy wanted to know.

And Mr. Cash said, "No."

* * *

After the initial cancer revelation, Mr. Cash gave us a little tutorial about what cancer is and why we never had to worry about catching anything from John. And while he was telling us this he also told us about chemotherapy and radiation therapy and said that John would lose his hair and get sick and lose weight. And the thing Mr. Cash kept emphasizing was that we all needed to support John. That he might feel weird and that we needed to let him know that he still had friends. And Mr. Cash didn't ever come out and say, "John's going to feel like a freak because he's gonna be bald and one-legged in a class full of healthy kids," but that was the message we took away from it. He gave us a phone number at the hospital where we could call and an address we could send cards.

And I thought about that for the rest of the day.

And when I got home that night, I called John.

A kid picked up in the oncology ward -- which I think might actually still have been called a cancer ward back then. I asked if John was there and the kid said yeah, hold on. There was some talking in the background. Then he came back and asked who is it?

"Jason," I said. "Jason Kovacs. From B.F. Day."

"Okay, hold on," said the kid.

More talking in the background. The kid came back.

"He's in the bathroom," the kid said.

"Oh," I said. "Okay. Should I hold?"

"If you want." I could hear the shrug through the phone.

"Um," I said. "Okay."

So he put the phone down and I spent a little while listening to kids talking and laughing in the background. Then the kid came back.

"You still here?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"He's still in the bathroom. Chemo, you know."

"Yeah, okay," I said.

And he put the phone down. More talking and laughing in the background. Much longer wait. The kid picked up the phone again.

"You still there?" he asked.

"Yup," I said.

And I heard the distinctive sound of someone putting their hand over the receiver.

"Oh my god," said the kid. "He's still there!"

And then there was a lot of laughing.

The kid came on again a minute later and he almost had it together, but not quite.

"He's still in the bathroom," the kid said through a grin that distorted his words, even through the phone.

"Mm-hm," I said. "Okay. Thanks. Just. Uh. Tell him I called I guess."

"Sure thing," said the kid, and I could hear more laughter in the background; full on belly-laughing this time, and the kid was barely keeping his voice even.

And that was that.

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a while, thinking things over.

I tried it three more times later in the week, just to make sure I understood what was happening, and it was the same routine every time.

* * *

A few weeks later we heard that John had his surgery and everything went well. We heard he was doing wheelchair races in the halls and that the doctors were amazed at his progress. A month or two later he came back to school on crutches, with a fake aluminum leg.

The leg was on a catch, so John could make it fall off by pushing a button on his thigh. This was a big hit with the other kids and John was a superstar again in no time. As it happened, this was right about the same time Terry Fox, the famous one-legged cancer amputee, was making his epic run across Canada and so, of course, John started training for that right away and everyone knew he was going to make it.

As far as I know, he did.

He was still improving like a superhero two months into the next year, our sixth grade year, when a custody dispute took me out of town for four months. And by the time I got back to Seattle the school year was mostly over with.

I dropped out for my seventh grade year and my dad took me with him to Los Angeles.

I still think about John a lot.

I guess it's a good thing that he didn't ... I don't know -- lower his standards to talk to a guy like me just because of a little cancer?

I don't know.

But that's the story of John Hoffman. Or at least it's my story of it.

Sunday Short: The Joker's Wild

2007-10-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

by Shannon Des Roches Rosa
Age 9 at the time

By the time I got out of first grade, I had figured out that I must be special, because teachers always told me I was Fantastic! and Amazing! just because I was a good reader. This was like telling me I was good at breathing, because, duh, of course I was good at reading. It was my favorite thing to do; it was just what I did. However, these adult reactions made me suspect that I had other super special secret traits that only certain adults could see, and most importantly, that I didn't have to put any effort into.

Other kids didn't appreciate my specialness. I knew I was supposed to be interested in them, though, so I did silly things to make them pay attention to me. In second grade, I would curl up and pretend to cry in front of the big, cool, fifth grade girls, so that they would come over to coo and offer comfort. In third grade, I would chase boys around the playground, pin them down, and kiss them in front of a crowd of giggling girls who didn't have the nerve to give chase themselves.

I still didn't understand how to play with the other kids in any sort of natural way, but that was okay -- they were rarely as interesting as my books, anyhow. In fact most kids who came over to play would, after about an hour, hunt down my mom and complain that they wanted to go home because I was just sitting in my room, reading.

When I was in fourth grade, my mom took me to try out for a kids' trivia TV game show called The Joker's Wild. I thought this was a great idea; if I was on TV, then the other kids would have to acknowledge my supremacy!

My brothers coached me on TV and cartoon trivia for the entire week before my try out: "What does Foghorn Leghorn always say?" "Where does Yogi Bear live?" Since I spent as much time in front of the tube as I did reading, the TV-centric written screening was no problem. I was asked back for a second round, including an interview with the show's staff.

I remember walking into a big office suite, with an oval table surrounded by leather executive chairs, each one containing a person in a fancy suit. I had never seen people like them before, except, of course, on TV. But I knew that if any adults could sense my secret special talents, it would be them.

The first question they asked me was, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

My answer: "A singer!" (I didn't even know if I could sing, but I loved Olivia Newton John so very, very much.)

They then asked, "Can you sing for us right now?"

Me, aghast: "NO!" (Couldn't they just sense that I would be a great singer?)

I was so embarrassed and perturbed by the failure of their specialness detecting powers that I slumped under the table. Somehow I exited the room.

Somehow they never called me to be on the show.

And somehow the other kids at my school continued to ignore my secret specialness. But that was okay; I still had my books.

In fifth grade I hooked up with my missing pieces: Michael and Miho. They weren't interested in how I was special and different; they were interested in how much I was like them. Which was, to my surprise, the way to form an intense, volatile, yet wonderful friendship.

(And I would be remiss if I didn't add that that same Michael introduced me to my husband, and is my oldest child's godfather.)

A Misled Superhero

2007-10-19T00:01:00.001-07:00

by Cindy M. Emch
Age 10 at the time

In fifth grade I started public school. My mom was a public school teacher in our small farm town. I marched with her on the picket line when I was in second grade. We didn't tell the other marchers that I was enrolled in the teeny tiny Catholic School in town. I was precocious to put it kindly. I was super-geeky and couldn't get my head out of novels heavier than I was -- that's another way to put it. After watching my brother bored, antsy, and getting into trouble in our local public school, my mom decided to give our people, the Catholics, a shot.

I got a good education in books at Catholic school, but not in socializing. It was one of those places where when I arrived somehow everyone was paired off. I paired off with a book and played with my friends after school, fascinated by their stories of what sounded like paradise: The Public School.

After four grades of begging and pleading, my parents gave in for fifth grade. I got to go school shopping for clothes that weren't uniforms, and started Latson Road Elementary in Mr. Greate's Fifth Grade Class. I felt so fancy and East Coast in my orange sweaters and brown jeans. I was a tiny fashionista after following my neighbors' clothes for all those years. I was beside myself with excitement. The only trouble was that I was entering a complicated social structure with no handbook, and all of my public school pals were a couple of years older and so were already moved on to Middle School.

I found some girls that were pretty friendly and nice enough that by 9 AM on the first day of school, we were the Three Musketeers. Total Best Friends. I was always a sucker for charming girls who could hold a conversation. I have always trusted easily. What I didn't yet know was that I was about to get a first hand education about "Best Friends."

When lunch came we ran around the yard, climbing and swinging and testing our daring by hanging upside down on the swings as we pushed each other higher and higher. Caroline said she'd be right back and skipped out of sight. Daphne and I didn't stop our dangerous swinging contest. We tried to see if we could twist the chains of our swings together to make the plastic and metal spin really fast and still flip upside down. It wasn't really working since we couldn't stop laughing long enough to wrap our legs around the chains once the swings separated.

Caroline ran back out of breath and upset. "THAT BOY! THAT BOY! THAT BOY IS MEAN! HE JUST PUSHED ME!"

My breath stopped. Someone was being mean to my New Best Friend. This wasn't OK. This was what I heard about at home, when people talked about how men hurt women. This was sexism in action! This was like those men that were rude to my mom sometimes and talked to her like she was dumb! This was Injustice! This was someone being a Bully to my New Best Friend!

"Which one?" I asked her. I felt like my whole destiny rode on this. No one would pick on my New Best Friend. I liked to play football. My brother was a state champion wrestler. My mom was a gym teacher. No one would challenge or hurt someone under My Protection.

"Over there in the middle of the tire ring," she said. She looked upset and yet strangely proud. "What are you going to do?" she asked me.

"Tell him that it's wrong to bully!" I said, and stomped away. I was full of a ten-year-old's righteous anger. I was going to Fight A Bully. I was going to Protect a Friend.

"Hey!" I yelled at this small fourth grader with sandy brown hair. "Hi!" he said, smiling and waving at me. "You shouldn't push girls" I said, grabbing his hand. "It's not right!" I said, louder and full of bluster. I pulled and swung on his arm, tossing him around in a curve. "Hey Stop It! What are you doing? I didn't. I didn't push anyone!" he said.

He sounded so confused. I pulled him up and closer to me. "Don't LIE to me. You pushed my friend. You're a bully!" I yelled. I started to slap him on the arms and back. Whereever my hands could reach, I was smacking him. He smacked back and tried to push me down. "You're MEAN!" I shouted, palms still flying. He was crying and I was too mad to think. My head was fuzzy with anger, and cloudy with wondering how this had gotten out of control. I didn't want to be hurting this kid. And why did he look familiar? There were about twenty kids gathered around at this point as we pushed each other, him falling down and getting back up. Both of us holding our ground.

"Stop it you kids! And on the first day of school!" Mrs. Elliot barked as she pulled us apart. There wasn't enough bad in either of us to fight a teacher.

A few minutes later we were sitting outside of Principal Park's office. "Why did you start picking on me?" Jason asked me. I recognized him now that I wasn't Caroline's avenging angel. He was the kid brother of my brother's best friend. We had run farm fields together. Gotten in hay bale fights and fed pigs together, laughing at their eagerness. He always let me brush the black horse because he knew it was my favorite chore. I felt so dumb. So shamed.

"You pushed Caroline. The girl with the pink headband. You hurt her. I thought you were being a bully." I told him.

"But I didn't -- she came over and kicked my ball away. I just chased after it."

I was so confused. The fight was over. I could tell he wasn't lying. Had I been completely duped by my new best friend? Had she just lied to see what would happen?

Principal Park called us in. He knew both of our families. I had known him as Greg ever since I could talk. He was always hanging out with my folks and saying hi when we were in town. "Cindy, you just started school here. I know you weren't a problem at St. Joseph's. Why did you beat up Jason?"

My superhero ego deflated. I couldn't explain to him how I was fighting for the good of the downtrodden, standing up to the bully hierarchy of the schoolyard, defending the rights of all poor little girls everywhere who got hurt, trying to prove that girls weren't weak and made to be pushed around. It all rang so false now. I had been played. Manipulated. Tested. I was duped into self righteous superhero for the amusement of a charming liar with a pink ribbon. "I thought he had bullied my friend. I was wrong. I am sorry."

Principal Park asked me about the bullying and I told him what Caroline had told me. Knowing it wasn't true, and saying that I knew now Jason hadn't done it. He still lectured Jason about bullying. He lectured us both about fighting. I defended Jason. Jason defended me. If I hadn't been crying so hard it wouldn've been really funny. He called our parents, who were as confused as we were at that point as to why two friends who played so well out of school had just gotten in a legendary fight in the schoolyard.

When I walked back into class and took my seat in between Daphne and Caroline, I looked at Caroline accusingly. "Wow, I didn't think you'd start a fight. Why'd you do that?" she whispered. Her eyes sparked at me, daring me to get upset. To call her on it in the middle of class and interrupt Mr. Greate and just get in more trouble. I swallowed something bitter. "I thought he was a bully." My words sat there on the desk. I looked to the front of the room to hear the teacher. It was going to be a very different sort of school year.

A Non-Catholic Upbringing

2007-10-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Lea Cuniberti-Duran
Elementary school years

I was born in Italy in the year 1967, just a year shy of the rising of the Student Movement and the beginning of the political rising, which in Europe, led to the blood stained 70's. Italy, at the time, was very much a Catholic country; kids were named after saints, and prayers were taught in school.

I was born the odd kid out: my mother is Jewish but was raised Catholic, in an attempt to escape the brutality of WWII, and my father was a Catholic turned Atheist. It was decided that I would not be baptized. The official line was that I was "given more choices", and I would be able to pick my religion as an adult.

In the mean time, my dad forbade me to go to church. I guess he did not want me to cloud my judgment or give in to peer pressure. Never mind that for the vast majority of people being part of a group is some sort of security blanket, and for a kid, blending-in is key.

Blending-in for me was never very easy. For one thing, my name is Lea (can you find a name that’s a bit more Jewish, please?), and then there was the fact that I was not baptized and I didn't attend church.

I don't remember anybody giving me too much grief about not being baptized until I hit grade school. Enter Mrs. Renata Manzoni, the woman who was going to be my teacher for a very long four years. Mrs. Manzoni was one of those human beings that takes it upon themselves to straighten out others. As an extremely devout Catholic, she could spot good from evil, and saving souls was high on her priority list.

It didn't take long for Mrs. Manzoni to find out that I was not Catholic. At the beginning of the school year, she called me to the front of the class introducing me to everybody: “Class, this is Lea. She is not baptized and she is going to hell.” Whispers spread across the class. Suddenly I was not viewed as just one of the other kids, but more like a newly discovered alien species.

The news spread quickly to the playground, and I immediately felt like a celebrity; but I was not the "she can jump double-dutch" playground celebrity, I was more "here comes the she-devil" kind. It goes without saying, that being six years old and pointed to as the “spawn of the devil” is no fun; and although I felt that I was like everybody else, I was told that I was different.

I don't remember being teased because of my lost soul, but I do remember being shunned by some of the kids at school. One time I was having an argument with another kid, when we were interrupted by one of her friends who came to her rescue and shut me up by saying, "Don't talk to her, she's not even baptized.” I remember feeling stunned, then livid, my ears red and burning. I watched their group as they walked away, gazing back at me, looking and then whispering and giggling.

Some other kids talked to their parents about my impending damnation; I guess that Mrs. Manzoni had struck a chord with some of my classmates. Some of those kids told me that I was not actually going to hell; rather, I’d be in limbo, where non-baptized, innocent souls spend their eternity. To me, the limbo deal seemed very much like a technicality, and not much of a consolation.

My parents, of course, were doing a 'bang up' job in letting me know that "hell" is merely a form of social control enforced by the church, so I ended up not worrying too much about it.

As every major holiday and religious celebration came and went, I felt deeply alienated from the rest of my community. Although I attended a public school, we went to mass as a class a few times a year. Many of the social and community activities rotated around church; it was the major catalyst. At a certain level not being able to be a part of it, made me almost not be a part of the community at all.

I felt very lonely; I was literally the only one that I knew who was not at least baptized, even within my immediate family. If my parents had belonged to a different denomination, I could have had at least a few people that shared our same beliefs, but being the only one raised Atheist was one of those things that forge one's personality in ways that I am still discovering.

A few times I snuck out behind my father's back (with my mother as an accomplice) and went to the after-church activities with the other kids. I really craved feeling, experiencing and seeing what everybody else was doing on Sunday. I remember hearing all about the after church programs on Monday at school, and to me, watching a movie, buying some candies, hanging out while some of the older kids played foosball, sounded nothing short of fantastic.

One time, I was invited by my friend Bruna to join her and her family after service. I was thrilled; it kept my mind occupied for several days. Finally Sunday came, and everything was just as I expected: religious movie and the opportunity to buy liquorices and marshmallows. After the movie was over, we all exited the small room, which was outfitted with benches and an old projector. To my absolute terror, I spotted a priest who knew of me; I really could not escape his look of disapproval. He looked at me as though I had just stolen something. I felt so humiliated and ashamed.

When it was time for first communion, it was clear that I was the only one in the entire school (read: in the entire country) who was going to skip it. I lived vicariously through the other girls, listening to their descriptions of their white nun-like dresses. Some of them would give me that look of "ugh, what does she want?” if they realized that I was eavesdropping.

Others didn't say anything, I think they felt bad for me and didn't know quite what to say.
I stayed up late thinking about how it would feel to be part of that--to have that dress, to go to the rehearsals-- to feel like I belonged. My best friend mercifully didn't talk about the whole thing, and tried not to make it too much of a big deal.

After First Communion Mrs. Manzoni gave a gift and her teary-eye congratulations to every one in the class.

Except for me, naturally.

Lose and Win

2007-10-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Jackie Davis-Martin
Age 13 at the time

The last parade of the summer carried me on highs and lows like those of the giant Ferris wheel dominating Kennywood Park, the magical scene of our annual marching band competition. It was 1955 and I was thirteen years old, equally preoccupied with garnering another victory for our junior high band, and trying to get a boy I really liked to pay attention to me.

As we scrambled off the buses the evening of the competition, the roller coasters undulated seductively around the parking lot where we were assigned to line up. I tried to concentrate on the parade route that Mr. Girotta, our director, was explaining to me, while keeping track of the boy I liked, Beanie. I was hoping to go on the rides with him afterward, my heart pounding already at the possibility of being buckled in next to him, of our being thrust with force against each other rounding the roller coaster curves, our arms shooting skyward in simultaneous joy.

Mr. Girotta followed my gaze and smiled. “Yeah, that’s what I want to talk to you about. Beanie’s on bass drum tonight.”

Our regular drummer was sick, he told me, frowning. Mr. Girotta had been teaching and drilling us kids since fourth grade and took us everywhere to compete. I was the drum major (or “-ette” as we added back then), sort of his right-hand girl, a position of both honor and isolation. As “major of the drum,” my job was to cue in the bass drum at times of playing opportunities, for instance while passing a judges’ stand. I got to wear a skirted costume with gold braid, a furry hat and tasseled boots, and carry a big fancy baton. I would hold that baton high and blow my whistle. Then, the drums’ rat-a-tatting would shift to the bass drum’s BOOM-boom! BOOM-boom! BOOOOM, BOOM-boom! The band would play! I knew that the worst thing that could happen to a school band was to march in muted cadence past the judges’ stand, instruments smartly and uselessly tucked under armpits.

Mr. Girotta stressed that the problem was to bring the band around the wide arc of the merry-go-round just before the judges’ stand. He left to collect our free tickets, and I crossed the dusty lot to Beanie who, although he made my heart flutter, was a wild card in the reliability department.

Beanie was tall and skinny and didn’t take much seriously. He had just moved here at the end of seventh grade, and everyone liked him. His spaghetti-like arms would wave above the snares or the triangles, or even, occasionally, on the cymbals. At our spring concert, before the curtain went up, he actually dropped a cymbal, sending of us into muffled paroxysms of laughter. When the cymbal had circled upon itself in resounding layers of clamor, Beanie scrunched up his eyes in a wincing apology.

“Hi, Miss Boss Lady,” he greeted me. I cringed; I wanted then to be a cute third clarinetist, in pants, with no concerns. “Mr. G. told me about the stand and all. I know what to do.”

“Oh! Good!” It was all I could gasp. Then, ever Mr. Girotta’s emissary, I couldn’t resist, “Beanie, your top button isn’t buttoned. Your jacket.”

He gaped at me. “My what? My button? Oh, well, pardon me!” He buttoned it up with elaborate gestures, his skinny elbows jutting wide. “Aha!” (He took a step back.) “What do I see here?” (He glanced at my white boots.) “Dust! Your boots have dust on them, Miss Perfect.”

I almost started to cry. “I’m not that at all,” I said. Did all this mean he liked me, or he didn’t? “You’ll watch me, won’t you? You know the signal?” I waved my clunky wand in the air, demonstrating.

He leaned forward, close enough to kiss. “I won’t take my eyes off you!” he said, smiling, then straightened to buckle on his drum.

I sort of auditioned Beanie early on. Our band was arranged in seven rows of seven, the percussion in the fourth row, bass drum in the middle. The first time I signaled, he boomed the roll-off, the band played its rousing Thunderer march. I felt on top of the world. I signaled near Kiddieland, then the Ferris wheel, and twice more. We were a team, Beanie and I! I strutted confidently toward the merry-go-round, pumping the baton.

But suddenly, the cadence grew fainter, and then got lost in the calliope music. I blew the whistle hard, and flourished the baton. Nothing happened. I did it again. Again, nothing. I turned around to realize with the worst of sensations that I had lost most of the band! Still with me were two rows of clarinets and flutes, looking over their shoulders nervously, and then there was a separation -- a big space -- that stretched around the merry-go-round into some unknown hell I didn’t want to think about. The piccolo pointed beyond me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that I was also losing our connection to the rest of the parade.

I pranced through the space to the lost rows blowing my whistle hysterically. Nothing! I stopped and screamed “Roll Off! Take the Roll Off!” This was so far beyond protocol that even now I cringe at what I did.

BOOM-boom! BOOM-boom! BO-O-O-O-M, BOOM-boom! Finally. I ran in high phony marches back to where I was supposed to be, to the strains of The Thunderer, but it was too late. I was now in front of the judges who had watched our -- my -- humiliating show.

Afterward I sought the edge of the bus lot and crouched on a log until Mr. Girotta came and got me.

“I’m sorry!” I sobbed. He nodded and patted me on the shoulder. “Look, there’s someone here,” he said, producing Beanie from the shadows.

“I couldn’t see you!” Beanie said, in anguish. “I told Mr. G. I couldn’t. I didn’t hear the whistle, either. Those flanks took so long to go around -- I had to wait for them, didn’t I? I just couldn’t leave those rows behind, could I? Then, I didn’t know where you went, until you came running through!”

“Don’t!” I put my face in my hands.

“You didn’t even ride,” Beanie said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“We lost.” I said, crying.

“Yeah,” he said, “ I know we did. I guess we did it together.” He lifted my hat from my lap. ”Anyway, I was wondering. I mean after all this, would you -- would you sit with me on the bus ride home?”

I turned to him in wonder. What did a trophy matter? Beanie liked me! I took his hand, and let him lead me back to the bus.

Political Ambitions

2007-10-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Linda Saslow
Junior High

In elementary school and Junior High School, I was never a popular child. I was the smart kid. I was the wise cracker in MGM who everyone resented because academics came easily to me. Perhaps I raised my hand too much. Knowing too many answers was never a character trait that the other children liked. Plus, I was horrible at sports.

In sixth grade –- the year was about 1980 as I recall -- I wrote an essay about how I wanted to be the first woman president. This is a reality that seems I will not achieve now that it is 2007, I am 37 and there is a viable female candidate for the top office of the land. The essay was printed in the school yearbook. I got some sort of prize at an assembly. My parents and teachers liked the essay, my peers did not.

In seventh grade, I decided to take the bull by the horns and run for student council. I wanted to be vice president. My father thought this was a grand idea. The problem was that I was not one of the popular children. My mother bought me gingham dresses and I willingly wore them to school. I was still smart, but my friends were few. I was in no way cool. I didn’t have the right clothes and I did not listen to the right music. My hair was hopeless. My mother would only take me to her friend for cuts and she would never do the short fashionable styles I desired.

My father helped me make posters to hang at Goddard Junior High School in Glendora, California. The signs were cute with hand-drawn cartoon characters. I wrote some sort of speech and was incredibly nervous when I had to deliver it to the entire student body at a podium in the gym.

I did not win.

I was bummed about my defeat for a while, but then I realized I was still one of the smart kids, even if I could not win a popularity contest. There were places for me to fit in.

In eighth grade I became the editor of the Junior High newspaper which was still run off on an archaic mimeograph machine. Even a photocopier was too high tech for the newspaper office in 1982. I was a good writer before becoming editor of the paper, but I really started to shine once I had acknowledgement for my work. And, I had a staff and some of the kids were popular and they had to kiss up to me to get their stories printed. This I liked. I had the power that I craved. But I had been appointed by teachers, not put up to a popular vote.

For my 13th birthday my mother let me have a large party in the back yard. It was a co-party with a friend who was a bit more popular, so I had hopes that some of the cool kids would come. My friend’s mom made a cake and my mother bought one of those really long sub sandwiches.

Everyone came. I was amazed. I was suddenly not a pariah. Eighth grade proved to be much better socially for me. I had lunch friends. I was on an AYSO soccer team. I discarded the gingham dresses for jeans and corduroy pants. My mother finally relented to let me pick out my own clothes. I got my ears pierced.

The final insult cam at the end of eighth grade when I decided to try out for cheerleader. I was nervous during the audition and I was not picked to be a freshman cheerleader. It seemed that true popularity would always elude me.

At the end of my thirteenth year I moved to another city. The new city was hours away. I had to find my way in a whole new social environment. I was never especially popular in high school, but I managed to make newspaper editor again and had a small circle of genuine friends.

Having just watched my oldest child wade through Junior High, I became acutely aware again how twelve- and thirteen-year-olds are especially cruel. The competition to be thin, have good hair, and trendy clothes has not changed a bit. I doubt it ever will.

First Grade Reader

2007-10-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Jenifer Scharpen
Age 6 at the time

My first grade teacher was maybe not the most insightful woman to ever pass out a Dick and Jane reader, and I really don't remember many things about the days I spent in her classroom. I do remember though, what divided me from my classmates and made it impossible for me to have any friends: I could read.

I started first grade when I was five, but just weeks away from turning six. My parents had (rightfully) convinced the school district to let me jump over kindergarten because I could already read and write without much help. If my father were telling this part of the story, he'd point out that I liked to read him the newspaper, and that I used Perfect Grammar when I spoke, from the time I was tiny until the end of that first week of school. The grammar didn't stand a chance once I was hanging around with actual children. There were two other kids in first grade who could read: Deborah and Michael. We sat huddled together in the back corner of the classroom with our pencils, books, and Big Chief tablets, away from the kids who were learning the basics.

This of course was bad. You'd think that we'd have had each other, but even my socially-challenged brain figured out that we were so uncool and unwelcome it would be best to act like the other kids and just hate each other and ourselves. Our teacher loved to use us as examples for the class, "Someday you'll be reading like they are!"

I remember sitting at my desk on one of the first days of school and watching a kid cut up his lunch money, a dollar, with his safety scissors. He did a great job, ending up with tiny and even squares. I was horrified. Somehow it seemed worse to me than cutting up an American flag (which I likened it to at the time) and I knew I had to tell. I did. And the kid was sent back to kindergarten. Thirty-one years later I still feel guilty. Peeing my pants at the zoo didn't exactly help my social standing, either. Nor did the fact that I was so small and so allergy riddled and so, so freckled.

But, I think what really did me in was my job as classroom monitor. I still dream about it. I had to stand up on a chair parked by the chalkboard at the head of the class. I held a thin piece of chalk in my hand and my instructions were to write down the name of any child who talked. The teacher would leave the room and give me this look. This look that was like, "Okay, you are totally more responsible and mature than these other kids. You're just a small adult. So, help me out, give me a break from this and do my job for me so I can go out for a smoke." I may be misinterpreting this memory a little, but the next part is unforgettable: the sound of kids talking and laughing loud enough to be heard through the classroom door. The closed classroom door. The classroom door through which I could hear the teacher's shoes clomping down the tile hallway.

Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I don't remember what I did. Sometimes there's a flash of the teacher demanding to know who was talking, but I really don't know what happened. Probably, I tattled. At least the teacher seemed to admire me and I sure didn't want to lose that.

One time during the school year a girl from my class asked me to play. Come with me, she'd said, dragging me by the shirtsleeve. We ended up underneath a tree near the seesaw and the chain link fence and the street. Bury my hands in the dirt, she commanded. Look down close at them now. I was fascinated and did as I was told. I figured it out only when I saw the flash of her hands flinging the dirt into my face. And of course that was too late. It wasn't bad enough that everyone thought I was weird and a teacher's pet. Now I had dirt in my eyes and in my mouth and up my nose.

Still, I remember the day that I did come home with that Dick and Jane reader. I remember my parents being happy for me, telling me that they'd read it when they were little, too. I remember showing it to them as we walked through the parking lot of the apartment complex where we lived. I remember taking it out and looking at it as I walked home from school. I knew it was cool to be able to read.

I knew first grade wouldn't last forever.

Sunday Short: Junior High

2007-10-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

By SuzieQ
Seventh Grade

My best friend "Alison" and I had a lot of fun together after school and on weekends. We rode bikes around the neighborhood, went to Thrifty for ice cream and to try on makeup, and talked on the phone for hours. Our birthdays were a day apart, our senses of humor were compatible, and we both loved Judy Blume, prank phone calls, and sleep away camp. But she shared her actual birth date with "Wendi," a girl in the popular crowd.

In seventh grade, Alison and Wendi planned a joint birthday party--a night time party with boys, dancing, and who knows what else. I write "who knows" because I wasn't there. I wasn't invited.

Alison explained that she couldn't invite me because she didn't want Wendi and her crowd to know that we were friends. She said she could only act friendly to me outside of school--otherwise I'd blow her cover. Pretty terrible, no? Unfortunately, my self esteem was, too, because I accepted the terms of her friendship. I just wanted to keep her as a friend. The night of the Alison/Wendi party, I stayed home and cried in my room.

Last time I checked, Alison and Wendi hadn't talked since the 80's. Alison never was fully accepted into Wendi's dominant popular clique, but she found her own group in high school. I had my own group too. We did stay friends, though.

And believe it or not, I am still friendly with Alison. Am I able to maintain the friendliness because I am happy with my spouse, kids, work, and life, and she is single and hates her job? Maybe! Wheel of karma?

My daughter can't believe that someone would do that to me. I am so glad she is indignant about it. I don't think she'd put up with Alison's terms. I am glad she is stronger and has more self esteem than I did!

Can You Hear Us Squee!?

2007-10-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Can You Hear Us Squee!?

One of Shan's favorite people -- professional comix artist, rabblerouser, and fellow quirky kid mom Lea Hernandez -- is not only going to contribute to Can I Sit With You?, but she's going to donate the book cover! This kind of generosity and ass-kickery in the name of kids who aren't even hers makes us all sniffly with glee.

We have more writings promised from some of your favorite bloggers, but since they've not publically announced their intentions, we can't yet crow about them. Yet. But keep your eyes peeled. Especially this week.

Love is the Best Revenge

2007-10-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Tammy Harrison
Age 11 at the time - Sixth Grade

In 1975, my childhood ended and my life became a mess; beyond a mess really. It was a mess that I had no control or say-so over. My dad had suffered a cerebral aneurysm burst in the back of his brain -- more than one blood vessel had blown up in his head - and my mother was incapable of caring for herself, let alone her five children. (But she tried!) After fighting with one of Dad's brothers to keep her five children, she moved us all back to our hometown to live with her.

Mom attempted to be both a mom and a dad to us. She got us enrolled in school and things started appearing normal again. I was in the sixth grade. Dad was still recovering in the hospital.

For some reason, there was a girl in my class who didn't like me. Glenda. I still, to this day, have no idea why she didn't like me. I rarely talked, as I was painfully introverted because of my family life. I had no friends that were in my class as all of my friends who lived in my neighborhood were either older, younger or went to other schools.

Glenda was just flat-out mean. And I was a prime target for her anger because I didn't talk back and didn't fight back.

She'd walk into class in the mornings, and I'd be sitting at my desk. If the teacher wasn't in the room, or if she had her back turned, Glenda would tower over me and pummel me. Right in front of everyone. She just pounded my head and arms. No one laughed. No one helped. They just watched and when Glenda was done, she went to her desk and sat down as if nothing had happened.

I did nothing.

My parents were both abusive alcoholics, which means that when they drank beer, they got mean and beat each other up. I'd lived a life of people hitting each other--all the time. If it wasn't my parents fighting, it was one of my brothers fighting. Or my aunts and uncles. Even at my young age, I'd decided that if Mom would just quit fighting Dad back, she'd spare herself a lot of pain, bruises and unexplained hospital visits.

So, I sat there and took my beating from Glenda.

Every school day from August through February of my sixth grade school year.

One morning, the hospital called and said Dad was gone. He died in February 1976. Mom gathered us around and told us. We cried because she was crying, but he'd been gone from our home for six months already, so we'd already had time to get used to not having him around.

I missed school for a few days to attend the funeral.

When I returned to school, I sat at my desk that morning waiting for my daily torture session from Glenda.

It didn't happen.

Instead, at my desk was a packet of sympathy cards from my classmates (including one from Glenda.) I don't remember what they said, or even what hers said. All I know is that from that day on, Glenda left me alone. She never raised another fist to me. I suppose she figured the pain I was now feeling from the loss of my dad was enough for her, she'd moved on to hurt someone else.

Thankfully we went to different junior high schools. Within three months of my dad's death, my mother got tired of his family's interference in our lives and she abandoned us. (Left us! My mother left her children while we were at school. I still can't believe it, over 30 years later!) I was put into foster homes since I refused to live with my dad's family, who had taken my sister and three brothers. Then Mom committed suicide the next year, because the family wouldn't let her have her children back. She killed herself because she couldn't love her kids again.

I was lucky though, because I had my Gramma from Tramma. She was my mom's mother, and she and I had a very special relationship. She loved me like no one else did and she treated me as if I were the princess in her castle.

It would seem all was okay, but I still had that old resentment. In my mind there was still retribution, retaliation and revenge to be had on Glenda. I took to this goal as my mission in life. She'd hurt me when I was already hurting. She beat me when I was already down. She could not have cared less about my feelings or my soul - she had her own agenda and that involved my oppression. In the world that I'd come from, I'd thought I'd never be free of my feelings towards her until I let her have it, once and for all.

I played basketball in the ninth grade. Our school happened to play her school. And there, walking into the gym, all cocky and excited with pre-game anticipation, was Glenda. I'll never forget the way I felt when she came into my view. I was no longer the introverted, gotta-take-someone-else's-punishment type of person. I had overcome a lot of issues, especially since defying my dad's family and living where I wanted to live. I wasn't taking anyone else's crap anymore. Glenda's included.

But, guess what? Glenda didn't remember me! She didn't give me a second look. She was all mouthy and still a thug, but she didn't single me out because she didn't remember me. This told me she'd treated many others the same way she treated me - and she was so self-confident that she felt she was above reproach.

When we went to the locker room for half-time the coach gave us a pep talk. He happened to mention something about Glenda and how she'd had a tough life, that she was a fighter on and off the court and that we were to stop her but be careful because she played rough. She came from a broken home and ran the streets getting in to fights and had been in trouble with the law because she didn't have anyone who cared about her.

With those words I suddenly felt lucky! I had love from my very special Gramma; love that will stay with me forever and ever--and Glenda didn't!

I smiled a very smug smile, knowing that her "tough life" was payback, and I didn't even need to lift a finger or say a mean word to her. Nope, I just stood there and took it with a smile that never left my face for the rest of the game. Glenda needed love - and regardless of how awful my life was, I had something that she'd never had-- love! I didn't need to take anymore action against her. My conscience was clear without me hurting her or myself. And I went home and called my Gramma and thanked her for loving me.

The Flipside

2007-10-11T00:01:00.001-07:00

By brokenbuddha
Age 12 at the time

In the middle of my fourth grade year my family moved to small town Idaho. I got made fun of from the very first day. Naturally, I made friends with the only person geekier than I was. I tentatively sought approval from my peers--got rejected, of course. I was the new kid. This didn't truly bother me until sixth grade.

At the beginning of the year I had one friend - the only friend I'd had for the past two years. Jon M. He had a horrible temper with everyone but me. His family was poor and couldn't afford things like toothpaste, so his teeth were awful. He was the shortest kid in class. He was so very smart, and a naturally talented flute player. He taught me how to play checkers, and how to pump your legs hard enough on the swings to achieve Warp Speed 9.

Sixth grade was the year I lost him.

For some reason, the girls in the class took pity on me. They tried to make me over, make me "cool" just like them. I could hardly believe it. I was finally being accepted! The only problem was, they told me I couldn't hang out with Jon anymore. In fact, I had to make fun of him just like they did or else I wouldn't be a part of the group.

Peer pressure is one of the most horrible things on the planet. I caved in. I became one of the bullies. I made fun of Jon. I still remember the look on his face when I did it. It killed me. I couldn't believe I'd done that to my one true friend.

The next year, when we started seventh grade, I wanted to apologize to him. My eyes constantly roamed the halls, looking for my friend, but I never saw him again. His sister told me he was being home schooled because he "didn't have any friends at school anymore."

I will never forget my friend Jon, and how I lost him. I work every day to be kind to people in the hopes that someday I will be able to forgive myself.

Wet Dog

2007-10-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Laura Henry
Seventh Grade

In seventh grade I was going though a major awkwardness phase (okay, who wasn't?). I was on the brink of figuring out how to assert myself and promote my own personality, but still followed the lead of a few more obnoxious girls in my group from elementary school days. I wore big ugly thick glasses, had my hideous Oglivie home perm (thanks, Mom…) and was a short shy bookworm nerd.

A new girl, Becky, moved in to our neighborhood one street over from me. She was a year older and was huge, thuggish, and played soccer. Somehow she became friends with my best friend, yet at the same time made my life a living hell on the bus to school every day. I was no stranger to being taunted on the bus, but she was in my face, yelling and scary. She would call me a "wet dog" when I got on the bus with wet hair in the morning. My friends did not defend me. My sense of outrage that this big stupid mulleted new girl could come and completely disrupt my life grew and grew.

One day on the bus ride home I waited for Becky to get off the bus, and then screamed, "You're a BITCH!" out the window at her. Then I sat back down and knew my life was over. I could hear her screaming, "You're dead, I am going to kick your ass tomorrow!"

I got off the bus one stop later and ran home like the wind to barricade myself in. I was trembling, crying, and sick with dread. I was going to have to be in a fight. What would it be like? It would hurt and I would have to try to punch her back.

I can't remember any of the next day except the end of the school day. I was at my locker getting my books and all of a sudden there was a huge crowd of people behind me, yelling. Becky was there yelling at me; another girl, Kelly, was there yelling at me to take my glasses off so that Becky could punch me. Someone grabbed my books out of my hands and threw them over the lockers. It was all a hideous confused blur. I started yelling that there was no way I was going to take off my glasses so that someone could hit me, were they idiots? I started crying and somehow managed to push my way out of the crowd to a bunch of teachers who were standing nearby.

I tried to tell a teacher what had happened. One of them grabbed my arm above the elbow hard and dragged me to where my books had been thrown. She made me pick them up and then dragged me to the vice principal's office. I kept asking her to let go of me, and said she was hurting me. I told her I had not thrown my own books (why would I throw my own books, lady!?), that someone else had, and that they had tried to hit me. Outrage! She did not listen and she did not care and neither did the vice principal.

I got three days of in-school suspension. (Why?) Becky attempted to become my best friend, inviting me over to play Playstation (not interested!) and filling up my locker with candy and cake and balloons.

The girl picking on me, the teacher, the crowd of kids ... none of their behavior made sense to me. This is one of the incidents that really helped me realize that: A) I could defend myself, B) I didn't have to be friends with anyone I didn't really like, and C) other people were idiots and it wasn't my problem.

Forever Young

2007-10-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Elaine Park

For a few years, in grades five and six, I went to a small rural school a few miles out of a town that was a few hundred miles out of anywhere else. At lunch and recess we all played marbles and the girls skipped rope. I could manage single-rope skipping, but never double dutch. I was not even allowed to turn the ropes for double dutch. In the winter we played a game that involved tramping out a big circle in the snow, cut into pie-shaped pieces that we had to run around. We played dodge ball, which I was relatively good at, although to this day I am uncomfortable with things flying at my head. The kids teased me for colouring people's hair orange when I was doing art, but I was pretty sure that "red hair" was just a figure of speech and the orange crayon was the way to go.

By seventh grade, I was discovered to be an advanced learner and got sent into town on the bus to Robert Moore Elementary, the biggest school in the area. We had French taught to us by a hip young Quebecois couple who were eventually caught smoking dope and fired. We had music taught to us by the crusty high school band teacher and learned to play recorders.

The students at Robert Moore were contemptuous of "farmers" as they called us kids who came in on the bus. Although some of the kids did live on farms, the label didn't make sense for me. We had moved to the area from an even more remote northwestern Ontario town, but before that we had lived in England, France, and Belgium, as my dad was in the military police in the Canadian Air Force. I had seen the gondolas of Venice, walked among the row-on-row crosses in Verdun, gone shoe shopping in London, and got my first pair of glasses in Luxembourg. I had learned to say "fermez la bouche" courtesy of the rude grandchildren of the lady who lived next door to us in the village of Virton. My parents were both from Toronto, and my mother was painfully intellectual and only listened to classical music and Broadway musicals. She had a lifetime birding list. Clearly it was not I who was the hick.

When I first started going to school at Robert Moore, some of the kids tried to set me up for a prank involving a boy who was overweight. They crafted a pretend love note from him to me. It was going to be a masterful humiliation doubleheader. The girl who sat behind me, who a few years later became quite a nice person, passed me the note. I somehow picked up the wrong piece of paper and opened it up. It was blank. "That piece of paper you passed me was blank," I earnestly told her. Much later I found the pretend love note and realized with some wonder that I had completely messed up the plan basically by confusing everyone too much to proceed.

After a while though, I developed some solid credibility by being compulsively defiant of any form of authority while pulling down some of the highest marks in the school, and also by being a little exotic from having living abroad. I was welcomed to join the bad kids in the back alley while they smoked cigarettes, even though I didn't smoke myself. I eventually became part of a group of girls who liked me as much as I liked them, and we stuck together from then on.

I'm sure I wasn't happy about any teasing I endured during these years, but when I look back, I don't remember feeling that angry or bitter about it. I knew I was an outsider, but I changed school every two years until I got to high school, so I was an outsider for a legitimate reason. I also took my status as evidence of my superiority. I was proud of being different because being different for me meant being better.

Instead, when I think about it all, I feel a softly glowing gratitude for the kids who did befriend me. There was the girl who taught me how to draw a face by making a U and then filling in the details of hair and eyes and nose. The girl who came to my house to make mud pies and act out episodes of The Man From Uncle, and who joined me on a tour of all the town's churches one day when there was no adult around to stop us. The girl who had me over to her crowded, noisy house where the only place to find solitude was on the roof of her porch. The neighbourhood gang who included me in a perpetual travelling game of football that raced from yard to yard on summer afternoons. The tangles of kids who absorbed me as a matter of course into the jumping, swinging, chasing anarchy of childhood fun.

I especially remember with satisfaction the friends who were along with me on the wild ride from grade seven dances to graduation day. It's been a long, long time since I've seen or heard from them. I guess I could find them if I wanted to, find them graying, and matronly, and slightly disapproving of me and my habit of running for freedom whenever obligation got too close. But I prefer to keep them as they were, especially my closest and best friend, who lives forever in my mind with her long, brown hair blowing behind her in overlapping flaps as she bikes ahead of me, sensible, loyal, and kind -- with friends and family intact and the whole glorious future stretching out in front of her -- it's a memory that I treasure and don't want to redeem for the unequal reality of the present. I hold it as a sacred icon -- for me and for her.

MEN-STRU-A-TION

2007-10-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Judy McCrary Koeppen
Junior High

For many, junior high was a time characterized by gawky looks, lanky extremities, braced teeth, and questionable skin clarity. Even for those fortunate enough to have a proportionate body, naturally straight teeth, and even skin tone, no one could escape the Big P.

PUBERTY

A time in life when hormones invade and one's body begins to morph and alienate its owner. Adding injury to the hormonal insult is the obsessive desire by girls to be carbon copies of their peers. Well, that’s the way it was for me. Every moment was spent certain that everyone was looking at me. I just knew the eyes of the world watched and were interested in the exact length of my pants, if my hair was brushed, and if my lips were glossed. When one lives in a perpetual state of self-absorbance, the most embarrassing horrors are often caused by one's self.

With a November birthday, I was older than most of my peers. In addition, I was an “early bloomer.” So I experienced PUBERTY earlier than most. My breast buds were an AA size at best. But no matter, I was sure my voluptuous tatas turned the corner and entered a room an hour before the rest of my body. The embarrassment of my body embracing its early spring was further fueled by my mother’s insistence on using appropriate and anatomically correct terms. Three and four syllable words were stretched and articulated nearly beyond recognition.

“Oh that’s great! You are MEN-STRU-A-TING!”

“Do you need any more SAN-I-TA-RY NAP-KINS?”

“Are your BREASTS tender?”

“Are your NIP-PLES feeling sensitive?”

“Is your VA-GI-NA bothering you?”

In my junior high era, girls didn’t carry purses, or I certainly didn’t. Kids also didn’t haul back packs from class to class. So this made it difficult to safely secure and hide a SAN-I-TA-RY NAP-KIN. Now of course, I called them “pads,” not nearly as offensive a word, and no one used a tampon back then. Certainly, no one admitted to having crossed over to womanhood.

Following lunch one day, I decided to change my pad in the girls’ locker room bathroom just before P.E. But how could I carry a pad from my outdoor locker to the locker room? There were no pockets in my light blue Dittos jeans. No matter that it was 95 degrees F, I donned my lemon-yellow windbreaker and slipped the contraband into the pocket. I stepped into the swarm of moving students and headed to P.E.

I can still picture it. I was ten feet from the entrance to the girls' locker room. Suddenly, my not-so-mini pad dove out from under the lemon-yellow hem. It was then that I remembered the fist-sized rip in my pocket. It was a slow motion event.

After escaping, the pad jumped on a current created by all the moving bodies. It dashed left, glided right, swirled above a light-brown Wallaby, finally dipped down, and came to rest on the sizzling concrete. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to run, but I was fixated like a moth on a bulb. Should I pick it up? Should I kick it under the bush? Should I just ignore it and RUN? I decided to go with ignoring it entirely.

I regrouped and cloaked myself in my best casual saunter and slipped into the girls' locker room. But I was certain that from that moment on, everyone in the entire school knew, and cared, that I was MEN-STRU-A-TING.

Sunday Short: Choices, Choices

2007-10-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we get entries that don't quite fall into the thousand-word essay category, but which need to be told, all the same. We think they make good Sunday Shorts, so don't forget to cruise on by on Sundays.

Also, apparently now we are the playground bullies in asking DoubleTrouble to share her tales (see #7). And we thought we left peer pressure behind once we left Junior High! Thanks for participating, DT!

My CISWY Options, In Chronological Order
By DoubleTrouble

1. Spent my entire lifetime believing I was fat, even though it's probably only really been true for the past 7 years, and for a time in college. Why? Because of the catty girls behind me in the water fountain line who said that my belly was getting so fat as I was drinking water. In retrospect, they were probably just hot and thirsty and wanted me to hurry up.

2. Requiring speech therapy in first/second grade because I couldn't pronounce the "sh" sound. Came out as "s." Not too big a deal, unless you know my name IRL.

3. Second grade school bus. I got on the bus at almost the last stop, and no one would let me sit with them. Happened repeatedly. Although I wasn't aware of why at the time, in hindsight and conversations with my brother, it was probably because I was one of the few Jewish kids on the school bus.

4. Fourth grade. Chorus tryouts. Basically all the kids get to join. All the time. Except for me. Did it have anything to do with the fact that all the other kids were given familiar Christmas songs to sing, together in a group, and I was given a Hanukah song that I didn't know, to sing by myself?

5. Sixth grade when two classmates taunted me (endlessly), claiming that I stuffed my bra. And that I did such a poor job that the two sides were uneven.

6. Junior high, and the perpetual lunch time fear that I wouldn't have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria.

7. Adulthood, challenged to take on a creative writing project and terribly fearful that I don't have the ability or the wit to produce anything publishable.

My Sister

2007-10-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Jackie Olsen (http://www.jackieolsen.com)
Elementary School

In elementary school my sister seemed to sail through unscathed, whereas I was subject to any number of indignities from my classmates on a regular basis. I was, to her, a pest, a trial, a barnacle on the side of her gloriously perfect ship. It was horrifying and vexing by turns to be that little sister. I couldn’t get it together no matter what I did. I was always late, always making her late, always forgetting something or breaking something else.

I was plagued by two boys who made fun of me almost constantly in third grade. Nothing my parents did seemed to stop the abuse. And my sister did her level best to duck out of walking me home from school and by the time I was 8 I was able to ride my bike home by myself. It certainly suited her not to have to deal with her pesky little sister.

One day the two boys lay in wait, unbeknownst to me. I rode fast, standing up on the pedals on the hills. Suddenly something sailed by, and then there they were, running up to me on the bike, throwing something at me. Eggs! I was being egged. One hit my arm and splattered over my shirt. I rode harder and made it around the corner. I was soon home.

My sister was in the kitchen and turned from the stove to see me stagger into the house, tears in my eyes. “What! What happened!” she asked.

“They egged me,” I cried. “Eggs. They threw eggs at me.”

And wouldn’t you know it, my sister turned out to have a sympathetic bone in her body, and she vowed to get those boys for me. “I’ll ride home with you tomorrow.” I soon calmed myself at the prospect of my big sister helping me out.

Next day it snowed, hard. The sky was white and we walked home from school together.

From out of the gloom came the boys. “Hey, fathead,” said one of them. I’d been called “fathead” all year, despite my using the great comeback line “fat heads have big brains.” Like that helped. They just didn’t let up, those boys.

My sister froze in place. I looked desperately at her as the boys drew in, snowballs in hand. At least it wasn’t eggs this time around. But she wouldn’t be any help at all, I could tell. I summoned my courage.

I yelled, “Think of an ICE COLD SHOWER,” sneering. “Imagine the ICE COLD WATER.” They stared at me. “You’re covered in ICE COLD.” In the moment I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but I used what little I had.

We pushed through and ran, and they didn’t throw the snowballs until we were halfway down the block.

“I can’t believe you did that,” said my sister. I couldn’t help noticing just a little bit of admiration in her voice. Ah, the triumph.

Love Hurts

2007-10-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Sarah Glover
Age 10 at the time

Mark Grady disfigured my back for life. Mark Grady. Even after thirty-odd years, the name still makes me cringe in agony. Mark Grady -- a sadist, a scoundrel and a bully. I loved him. Desperately.

Fifth grade. For me boys were nothing but chimps with less fur. Dirty nails. Dirty necks. No redeemable qualities. Except for Mark Grady, curse his lanky, green-eyed soul.

It all started innocently in Mrs. Cotoia's class.

"Should men learn how to cook and clean?" she asked. Mrs. Cotoia was a feminist. She wore cool bell bottoms and hoop earrings. She looked like she should have a theme song.

We wide-eyed girls nodded rapidly.

The boys grumbled -- the few that were paying attention at all. Except Mark Grady. He held up his hand. His clean, sculptured hand connected to his white oxford-shirted arm which led to his perfect shoulders. He smiled. I felt my heart move to my throat and beat so loudly I thought it might pop out onto my desk and lay there quivering its way to him in a frantic slimy trail. Bump, bump. Lurch. Bump, bump. Lurch.

"Mrs. Cotoia," he said wistfully. "Women are supposed to take care of men. I mean, I don't see why we need to do that when it's not our job. That's what my dad says."

My teacher's lips pursed so, her face appeared inside out. His face remained angelic. I imagined a room full of aunts squeezing that face till it turned blue.

"Are you crazy?" I shouted, coming to the aid of my teacher, intent to strike a blow for women everywhere. "Who'd want to take care of you? You better learn how to cook or else you're going to starve and your house is going pile up with junk and nobody's gonna clean it. You think we're on this earth just to serve you?" My face burned and fire filled my eyes. Mrs. Cotoia beamed. Mark Grady's hand descended, his eyes narrowing. Recess was only a breath away. Vengeance simmered in his stare.

Outside on the playground, I grabbed my best friend, Elise's hand, determined to move as far from my enemy as possible. The swings seemed the safest bet. They would offer visibility and a quick method of escape if necessary. Elise took the seat next to me and I adjusted my wrap-skirt. We pumped our legs in unison until we were soaring high up into the sky. The wind felt good on my bare legs. I watched it blow the dirt and rocks below our feet into swirling clumps.

"You know," shouted Elise, "You're probably in love."

"What?"

"With Mark Grady. Even with the yelling - the way you drool over him in class. It's love. Definitely. Right?"

"Shhhhh!" I pumped my legs a few more times to calm my frantic heart. Within minutes, I had confessed to her the deepest and most passionate secrets of my heart.

Then I heard laughing. I looked up. Mark Grady was leaning against the school, laughing. He had heard everything. I just knew it! Mortification flooded my veins. I slung low in the swing to hide my face from his sight. I slipped backwards; the swing caught my knees as I cringed with horror.

"Please, please God, don't let him have heard!"

On the downswing, the entire length of my back raked across the dirt and rocks below tearing the flesh down my spine like a giant cheese grater. My skirt flung up over my head exposing my bottom. The pain that stabbed like knives through my skin was nothing compared to the horror of having my underwear on display for the world to see. The world and Mark Grady. I screamed. The entire playground turned. I couldn't right myself. I flailed like a beached whale. My back scraped across the rocks again. I roared. Somehow, I flung my body over my knees and landed with a crash onto the dirt, skinning my hands and knees.

In the blur of the next few moments, a crowd of eager students, thrilled at the sight of that much blood, surrounded me. I was sobbing now, big gooey globs of snot and tears smeared with the dirt on my knees.

"What happened? What happened?" yelled Mrs. Cotoia's voice. She kneeled down next to me. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

Her tone made me howl. Girls cringed in wide-eyed alarm. Boys sniggered. Elise was hyperventilating.

Mrs. Cotoia composed herself and tried to gather me in her arms. "What happened? Did you fall?"

I was crying too much to answer. My pigtails were glued to my cheeks.

"What happened?" Mrs. Cotoia repeated sternly.

"It's not her fault," cried Elise in my defense. "She wants Mark Grady to kiss her and marry her and have babies with her and doesn't want him to know so she fell back on her swing so he wouldn't see her face then her back scraped against the rocks and that's why she's bleeding!"

A scandalous hush blanketed the playground. My life was over. I could fall into the blood and snot-filled dirt and curl up and die. They could put flowers over my body where other ostracized children could come and pay their respects, like some Lourdes for losers.

Eventually, bodies drifted away, giggling and sniggering. Mrs. Cotoia lifted me in her arms. "We need to get you to the nurse," she whispered. My back burned with each step as we trudged the long stretch back to school alone.

"There is one thing you need to know."

I looked up into her kind eyes, wiping my nose with my arm. "What?"

I followed her gaze to where Mark Grady sat with his friends on a picnic table tossing a softball into the air and roaring in laughter.

"Scars can happen anywhere. Inside and out. And both can hurt."

My back stung terribly as I watched him sit there, smug and cruel. I sniffed. "You're wrong. The scars on the inside hurt . . . more."

Best Friends

2007-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Mary Tsao of Mom Writes (http://marytsao.blogspot.com)
Fourth Grade

Fourth grade was not a good year for me. I was in a new school in a new town. The school I went to was in a wealthy neighborhood while I lived in a poorer neighborhood, which is another way of saying my family was poor while my classmates' families were not. Plus, I rode the bus to school, which at this school separated the kids who fit in from the kids who didn't. If your mom or dad drove you to school you fit in; if you rode the bus to school you didn't.

Oh, and did I mention that I had a buzz cut because the previous year I had head lice and my mom cut all my hair off? Yes, I was the new girl who had a bad haircut, wore the wrong clothes, lived in the wrong part of town, and rode the bus. All of those reasons combined with the fact that I was a shy, introverted kid who preferred reading books over playing sports or
gossiping, meant that I did not have many friends. And when I write that I did not have many friends, I mean that I had no friends at all.

But one day all of that changed. On that day, a cute little girl with short brown hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose, and a squeaky voice, decided that she wanted to be my friend, my best friend. I had a friend! I started to like going to school.

My friend and I met up in the schoolyard after the bus dropped me off. We talked about life, and she confided in me that she was trying to stop biting her nails. She showed me how she coated her chewed-up nails in a mixture of hot sauce and vinegar so that she wouldn't be inclined to bite them. She said it hurt her fingers and that she was growing to like the taste of hot sauce, but I was impressed. She was the first person I knew who was actively trying to improve herself. She seemed so mature.

She also had the kind of family life that I dreamed of having, the kind with a mother and a father, a brother, and a dog. I lived with my single mom and my twin sister; I idolized anybody who had the things I didn't have. she introduced me to the concept of talking on the phone, and one night we talked for hours. I ended up getting in trouble because my mom's boyfriend kept getting a busy signal when he called our house, but it was worth it. I had a friend.

Until the day I went to school and she had a new friend. That was the day she told me that she and the other girl had discussed it, and they had decided that best friends don't come in threes. I was the odd girl out. Literally. And with those harsh words spoken in a matter-of-fact tone and before the first bell rang, I no longer had a friend.

I don't remember how long our friendship lasted. I don't think it was very long. I don't remember the girl's name or much about her except for what I've told you. The thing that I remember most vividly is how she put hot sauce on her fingers. Looking back, it seems appropriate that a girl who liked hurting herself--even if it was in the name of self improvement--would think nothing of hurting me.

It was difficult, but I managed to survive fourth grade. I kept to myself, read a lot of books, and buried myself in imaginary worlds where best friends are reliable and if they're not, justice is swiftly served.

I went to a different school for fifth grade and for various reasons, my life improved. I had several close friends and I didn't feel as alone, different, or isolated as I did in fourth grade. I never did get another best girlfriend, though. Having one best friend in a lifetime is enough for me.

Sorry Charlie

2007-10-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Jennifer Byde Myers
Age 9 at the time

In third grade I was in Mr. Lennon's class. It was a third/fourth mixed class at a segregated school for smarty-pants kids; I am quite certain we were all terrors in one way or another.

With special permission, if you were in third, you could stay later with the fourth graders to learn music. I loved to sing, and Mr. Lennon thought I had talent. I longed to perform in front of a crowd and watch people smile, so each time there was a solo, I felt compelled to audition. There were probably only three of us who could actually carry a tune: Amy Rosen, Kianna Winter and I. Amy was a sweet girl who was very shy. She accepted any role she was given, happy, it seemed, to be in or out of the spotlight. Kianna and I were best friends, and as it turns out, arch rivals.

There wasn't a single activity I tried that Kianna wasn't right there vying to be better or faster. Dodge ball got so competitive we ended up on opposing boys' fifth-grade teams. During the school "jogathon" we completed an amazing 34 laps together. When I thought we were both done, Kianna ran away from me and completed another lap so she could "win." If I had a solo in the concert, she had a solo, even asking to add songs to the program if necessary. I never thought I was competing with Kianna until the activity was over and she would tell me how she had won. I guess it never mattered to me as long as we both did well and we were still best friends.

In May, Mr. Lennon decided we would put on play for the entire school: You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. Acting and singing! Performing in front of a paying audience! What could be better? I auditioned and got the part of Lucy. To cover my very blond hair, I bought a black wig that night and made plans with my grandmother to make a blue dress. I was going to be an actress and Broadway was in my future. It was thrilling and I couldn't wait to start rehearsals.

There was only one problem: my best friend had no role in the play. There were props to be made, sets to design, and someone needed to be the "prompter," hovering nearby if one of us forgot our lines. Kianna didn't sign up to do any of these other very important things because she insisted she should play the role of Lucy.

Kianna and her mom met privately with Mr. Lennon. Kianna made a petition and tried to get other kids to sign it asking that she be Lucy. She even called my house and told me to tell the teacher I wasn't good enough at singing and should quit the play. On the playground Kianna let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I should give her the part since I "didn't even have black hair" and she did, naturally.

She told me that I was a horrible friend because I stole her part.
She told me I was selfish.
She claimed I had somehow cheated.
She wrote notes, folding them into very small triangles: "I hate you."

I had no response for her. I was, for one of the few times in my life, stunned into silence. I could not imagine why she wasn't proud of me. I couldn't understand why she was being so hateful and mean. I wrote in my diary "I'm so sad Kianna doesn't like me. We were BFFs and now, because of this stupid play, we aren't."

At home, I finally talked with my parents. Sobbing, I told them all of the things Kianna had said and done. I decided, that while the idea of being in the school play was one of the most exciting things I could ever imagine, having Kianna as my best friend maybe meant more. Since she was not going to be happy, or be my friend if she wasn't Lucy, I had only one choice: give her the role.

My dad asked me, "Jenny, what would have happened if Kianna had gotten the part and you hadn't? Would you have been mad at her?"

My answer came right away. "No. It would have nothing to do with her. It would just mean that I wasn't good enough to do the part. I would be sad and disappointed, but why would I be mad at her?"

And it was like a light came on in my head. There was no way I was going to give up that part, and if Kianna wasn't going to be nice it was her own problem. None of what she was doing had much to do with me. She was sad and disappointed, just like I would have been, she just didn't know that it wasn't my fault.

At school the next day, I wrote Kianna a note asking her to talk with me at lunch. We sat together and shared a pomegranate. I reminded her that we were best friends, which meant that she should be proud and happy for me that I was going to be Lucy. I also told her that it meant that I was sad and disappointed for her because she wasn't going to be on stage. I told her I wasn't going to quit the play, because even if I did, there was a chance that she still wouldn't be Lucy, and then neither of us would be happy.

It seemed to work. We hugged, and Kianna and I were inseparable once more. She helped me with my lines, and we decided that she would be the understudy, just in case I got a sore throat. She never said another mean thing about the play--she even brought me a daisy on opening night.

[Oh, don't worry. Kianna got to "win" later. She was class president in 8th grade; I lost by 9 votes.]

Bitch

2007-10-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Kathleen Cecchin
7th Grade

Lights up. 1976. A gaggle of 7th grade girls in dark green plaid wool skirts, rolled up at the top so that they appear to be make-shift mini skirts, white short-sleeved blouses, white socks, and black shoes hang out in separate cliques of twos and threes in front of school doing the things that Catholic school girls do while waiting for the bell to ring that summons them back to class after lunch: holding their school books, talking, laughing, gossiping, whispering, and screaming. Gangly, clumsy boys in white shirts, blue pants, and those ridiculous snap on blue ties run about trying to push and punch each other and the girls all in good fun. There is a distinct difference between the boys and girls that can only be explained by the fact that one group clearly hits puberty at least a year before the other.

Four girls make an entrance carrying a boom box which is playing a well-known 70’s disco song that you can do “the bump” to. They are dressed in tight bell bottom jeans, tight shirts, and Converse gym shoes. They wear heavy eye-liner, jewelry, and nail polish. They have no school books. Some have purses. They chew gum. Two girls trail the first group at a slight distance. They are dressed as the first group but have none of the confidence or panache. They are obviously beta on-lookers, having accompanied the first group to witness the festivities.

All Catholic activity stops as the girls cross to a girl-clique of two, form a line and begin doing “the bump.” The dancing continues for a beat or two until one of the girls, JANE, steps forward from the line. The line closes like the Red Sea behind her. They stop dancing. The music fades. JANE approaches one of the two Catholic girls.

JANE: "I heard you called me a bitch."

JANE mock-boxes the ears of the Catholic girl, quickly batting the girl’s head back and forth between her hands. It is for effect rather than injury. The Catholic girl, arms full of books, makes no attempt to defend herself.

Suddenly, the Catholic girl throws her books up and behind her, knocking JANE’s hands away. As papers fly, Catholics gasp and duck the school book missiles. Meanwhile, the Red Sea opens at the center, pulls JANE behind them and closes again, separating JANE from the Catholic girl. They glare daringly at the Catholic girl.

The music rises as they turn and make their exit. They pass the two wannabes who giggle at the Catholic girl and then follow JANE and posse off left. The Catholics remain in place, stunned.

Lights down.

And that's exactly how it happened.

Teaser

2007-09-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

We'll publish a longer essay tomorrow, but as this short piece is too cute we thought we'd offer it up as an amuse bouche.

Catching On
By Victoria A. Laraneta
Age 9 at the time

I went to a small grade school in the Midwest. Kick-ball was the favorite recess sport back in the 1950's...sort of like baseball, only no bats and big heavy red rubber balls. I was always the kid who fell down on the way to school or the clumsy girl who tripped on the stairs. So at recess the team captains took turns picking the kids they wanted on their teams. I was always the last one standing. "You take her!'' "No, you take her!"--that's what I always heard.

It went on like that for me all through junior high and high school too.

When I was 40 I was trying to learn to play tennis...and I realized I didn't have any eye hand coordination. My tennis instructor taught me and it became a whole new world for me.

I think it is pretty cool now when my husband throws me the car keys and I can catch them.

Don't Touch That Dial!

2007-09-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

See you Monday, with our very first story post!

(You can't see us, but we're wiggling in our chairs with excitement. If you were our teacher, you'd ask us VERY LOUDLY AND IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS if we needed to use the restroom.)

You Will Submit

2007-09-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

We're thrilled that Can I Sit With You has so many people riled and rarin' to go. Now we just need you to transform your ire and enthusiasm into a nice, tidy submission of 1000 words or less.

The earlier you get your efforts to us, the better; do you really want to be competing with all the other talented procrastinators trying to squeak in under our book submissions deadline at the end of October when our kids are all hopped up on Halloween candy and generally getting widgy as the holidays approach and schedules get exploded and our tempers erupt while our patience declines? Hmmm?

Momentum

2007-09-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

While we won't be posting stories until Monday, October 1st, you should know that we've already received some excellent entries. And we have more promised from some of our favorite preternaturally talented writers, some of whom happen to be bloggers as well.

Don't forget that this is all happening through the power of the blogosphere and the internet. If you think one of your favorite bloggers should submit a story to us, go ahead and give them a poke; tell them about the site. It's for the kids, after all. The fact that we'll also get a daily dose of ~~righteous indignation~~ inspiration is just a bonus.

Any Questions?

2007-09-25T10:59:00.001-07:00

Let us know.

Can I Sit With You?

2007-09-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Could more stress be crammed into fewer words? Though to some people this phrase means merely, "Yay, new friends," to a lot of us it means instant school anxiety flashbacks. And possibly an intense need to crawl into a hole, or vomit.

Dealing with the other kids at school was complicated even if you didn't have a label. For those of us who were socially awkward, culturally juxtaposed, same-sex attracted, gender-cocooned, income-challenged, "weird" sibling-saddled, differently abled, atypical looking, religiously isolated, on the autism spectrum, or who somehow just didn't fit in, it could be brutal. Even though most of us eventually developed coping strategies, grew up, left school behind, and tried not to think about how much that time in our life sucked.

Until some of us starting having our own kids. And saw those kids start to flounder, saw them start fretting about how to fit in. Aiigh! What to do?

Well, we don't know what most people would do, but we've decided to take action. We want to help our kids. We want to give them some ammunition, or at least some mental armor. We want to show them that almost everyone has been mystified or terrorized by the schoolyard social scene, though for different reasons and in different ways. We want them to see that their angst is both universal and timeless. We want them to know that other people totally understand.

So, we are asking you to send us your most memorable stories about surviving, succeeding, or sucking it up while dealing with the other kids at school. We're going to post one of your stories on this blog every week day, starting October 1st. We'll keep posting as long as the stories keep coming.

Once we've got at least twenty good stories, we'll compile them into a book, which will be called (duh) "Can I Sit With You?" You'll be able to buy the book via Lulu.com in mid-November, at which point you can crow to your friends and relatives about your success as a published writer. (And convince everyone you've ever known to buy one as a holiday gift.)

The catch? Well, we're not going to pay you. Heh. Didn't we mention that? Sorry. We're hoping that the glory of your name in pixels and print will be compensation enough to donate your writing to some kids who could really use it, in more ways than one: the books' proceeds will directly benefit our local, income-challenged special needs PTA, SEPTAR. (Here's where we mention that we're both parents of special needs as well as typical kids, and on the board of said PTA.) If nothing else, you'll have a warm, do-gooder feeling in your belly, and an ISBN# under your belt.

We're hoping to get a lot of good, very different stories. We'd especially appreciate autism and other special needs perspectives, but we want whatever you've got ... to get off your chest.

Come on! Everyone's doing it. You know you want to. Please don't make us snitch on you for not sharing.

-Shan & Jen

P.S. If you have a great story to submit, thank you! Please check out our cheeky yet legally binding submission guidelines.

Submission Guidelines

2007-09-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Can I Sit with You? (CISWY) does not assume responsibility for any information submitted by authors or readers. By submitting any work, each author/reader is stating they have properly followed all legal rules and regulations for writing and publishing.

Rights:
CISWY does not ask for nor retain exclusive rights to any work. We request the right to publish your work on our website indefinitely and on any future related websites or other platforms in whole or in part and for your work to be archived indefinitely. Chosen submissions will be incorporated into a printed book and sold for profit. You will be notified if your submission is chosen for the print publication. You will receive no compensation for any submission other than the glory of your name in print. You may publish your piece elsewhere at any time. We may use a portion of your work to advertise our website or book (by using a quote or summary, for example). This means that other websites may freely link to your story, but no one has the right to reprint your particular story without the prior express written permission from both of us.

Editing:
CISWY reserves the right to edit work before publishing, for length, spelling, grammar, style and clarity. You may submit changes to your story, or request its removal from our website at any time. If your submission appears in the print copy you will not be able to re-call your work for any reason. All submissions are reviewed before going live on the public site and therefore, may not be available immediately. We may choose not to publish foul or derogatory language, photographs or references we deem offensive with regard to race, religion, gender or sexual orientation or for any other reason we decide. Your submission will not be made public if it doesn’t meet our criteria for appropriate submission. CISWY is not able to provide feedback on stories accepted or rejected.

Opinion:
Published pieces are not necessarily the opinion of CISWY.

Personal Information:
Your full, real name will be required so that your copyright release is valid. This information will not be released to any third party. If you choose to publish with your real name you do so with the understanding that the Internet is a very big place and that information you reveal may be used against you by former spouses or friends, identity thieves, the media, current or future employers and lawyers of course. CISWY will not be held liable.

Age:
To comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), we do not collect information from children under the age of 13. If you are age 18 or younger, you must have the permission of your parent or guardian to complete your submission.

Story Type and Theme:
CISWY publishes personal accounts and anecdotes about the writers' most memorable experiences navigating the stormy social seas of elementary and middle school from people all over the world. (For non-Americans, this would be up to age 13.) The book's intended audience is children of elementary and middle school age, which means that the writing needs to be relatively straightforward. This does not mean dumb and simple and boring.

Submissions:
CISWY reviews and prefers stories between 800 and 1000 words (about 4 printed pages). Submissions may be an attachment in email or in the body text of an email. All stories must be submitted in plain text so that we may format for the website. Anyone from any country may submit their story, but at this time all stories must be in English or translated into English before submission.

Please email submissions to ciswysubmissions@gmail.com.

Your email subject line should read:

SUBMISSION: The Title of Your Story

In the body of the email please include your information:

My Title About How No One Ate Lunch With Me
By A. Kewl Pursin
(the name under which you would like to be published)
Age # at the time

Your full name
Your preferred contact email

Your text up to 1000 words (or attach plain text document).

Other Legal Issues:
When writing about others, please state explicitly in your submission to us that you have obtained permission from those in the story, or you have changed names or places for anonymity. By submitting you agree that your submission is your own work. You are liable for the content. We will not tolerate any plagiarism or copyright infringement.