The Ghosts of Dead Teenagers

In high school, I fluctuated between two groups of people -- kids who thought it was a sin to drink a carbonated beverage of any sort (body as temple) and those who smoked pot laced with meth (body as rec room). I certainly did not make it with the strict religious types whose big Christmas party rebellion was to sneak in a two-liter of Dr. Pepper to sneak outside in small paper cups (I'd already convinced my mother that Coke was a perfectly good breakfast and gave me energy), yet I didn't fit with the hard-core try anything types either because I so feared losing control of myself in any situation, save for the once a month wine cooler or heaven help us, Zima. There wasn't much to do in Mineral Wells except to get drunk and look for scary shit like the ghosts of dead teenagers out in the woods (people told lots of scary stories surrounding people who had died untimely deaths in accidents) or pregnant (our small high school already had a nursery that catered to twenty-two of our student's babies) so I had a lot of time to fantasize about what life might be like on the outside.

Once in the fifth grade, my mother took my friend Curtis and I to the mall in Ft. Worth near Christmas. Curtis bought me a Christmas present (Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov, the only science fiction I have ever read) and a pair of bright lime green gloves at Bennetton. Nobody in Mineral Wells had such festive gloves! My mother broke out in laughter when she saw us, Curtis adorned with his new purchase and asked him where he planned on wearing the gloves, given that it never got really cold in that part of Texas. Not while I'm in Mineral Wells, he said. They're for when I leave after high school. How his future must have gleamed against the single note of doom that played in those days of dodging the assholes that yelled faggot in the halls. It was a cold day with a grey sky and the gloves were the only bright thing I could see for miles.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"The future was ours -- it always belongs to the ones who are unhappy in the present." Kathy Dobie, The Only Girl In the Car

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: Trouble Man, Marvin Gaye (This is a soundtrack to a movie very loosely corresponding with some of Marvin's life.)

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Wednesday to everyone!