I went to school for nineteen years (excluding pre-school and kindergarten). Every single one of those years was spent deep in the bosom of Mother Church. Yep. I'm a Catholic school kid.
I spent the first twelve of those years in a uniform. No one knows more about the properties of natural and synthetic clothing fibers than a Catholic school kid. When I started grade school, all the girls wore polyester jumpers with fake brass buttons and big, stiff patches with the school emblem and a Peter Pan collar polyester shirt underneath. I remember as my sister and I got chubbier beyond our first grade years, the buttons started to strain a little and eventually to pop off. My mother and grandmother got so sick of mending that they taught us to sew buttons. The first rule of Catholic school is you only get one uniform. The price per square inch of those things is indexed to the gold standard. This is my jumper, this is my blouse. There are many other uniforms like it, but this one is mine. Don't get me started on the shoes.
Then there were kilts. Kilts are the hairshirt of the chubby girl world, which is weird as they were imagined as a solution to the problem of kids growing out of their criminally overpriced uniforms, but make a young lady in her awkward phase look like she was wearing a pleated bath towel around her waist. Non-chubby girls fight an entirely different kilt battle -- the art and artistry of skirt rolling. When your mom refused to hem your skirt to an appropriately almost-slutty length, it was easy to take matters into your own hands -- but the practice was/is about as popular with your average band of nuns as is smoking crack under bridges with boys who ride motorcycles.
As you might imagine, uniform enforcement becomes a pretty major focus in Catholic schools. skirt rolls, shirt tails, knee socks, shoe heels, shirt collars. Myriad ways to fuck up and divert five to ten minutes from actual learning. The rules extended beyond attire to makeup (don't consider it), earrings (nothing that dangled below the bottom of the earloab), haircuts (for boys, above the collar but no head-shaving). "Dress down days" were a mixed blessing of freedom and chains. In fourth grade, when the Simpsons debuted and became an overnight hit, the ubiquitous Bart Simpson t-shirts were banned. Then any shirt with a logo or "phrase" on it. Word has it they've now excluded designer jeans from dress-down day and designer handbags all the time. Dressy dress down days (grandparents' day, Christmas pageant day, senior portrait day) were a special brand of confusion. I'm still talking about grade school, by the by.
My high school thought they were doing everyone a favor by adopting something of a hybrid uniform/dress code policy. Starting with my class, female students could pick one of two uniform skirts or pants of their own choosing, any shirt, and a school-sanctioned "wool" blazer. The blazer in particular caused a shitstorm of controversy, leading the school to enact a policy whereby students could earn varsity letters for activities and not just sports, thereby earning the right to wear the coveted letter sweater. Before my year, the uniforms were black skirts for girls and white shirts for boys and letter sweaters for those who had letters. That general combo persisted in spite of the revised rules and an alien visitor who stopped by on an average school day would likely have thought he had stumbled upon the Bishop Eustace Happy Days Cater Waiter Training Academy.
The only thing everyone liked about school uniforms was the opportunity to change out of them as soon as humanly possible. Thanks to unflichingly rigid Leahy family policy, when I finally started to drive I became the proud possessor of a set of keys to a 1985 Honda Accord SEi with a manual transmission and am proud to say that, to this day, I can completely and demurely change my entire outfit while operating a stick shift automobile at highway speed.
When I went away to college, I thought wearing civilian clothes every day would be the best thing ever. I thought I would stumble to my 8:00 AM class in pajamas and so would everyone else. I didn't count on two things: supermodel hot female classmates with full wardrobes of designer clothes and good old fashioned Catholic guilt and indoctrinated respect for authority. My own limited wardrobe of non-uniform clothes was paltry and, it turns out, embarassingly non-designer. Out of sheer laze and complete lack of motivation, I barely ever wore makeup. You can imagine my reaction when the girl in the next row in my 8 AM calculus class popped into the room sporting a handbag worth more than my car and a full face of makeup complemented by pillow creases. And then I just started to feel like an asshole showing up to class looking like a mental patient. It wasn't long before I was getting up early to iron my clothes.
Now I wish life had uniforms. I'm not going to lie . . . total state control of industry, while a bad idea, would at least have the benefit of predictable, mindless dress. I've sort of never understood why some female religious have been so dedicated to getting rid of the habit; what freedom, I think. The amount of time and brain power I spend in an average day to find something to wear, determine how dirty it is, and administer the correct undergarments is depressing when calculated. There are only, really, two ways for me to be happy: working a full-time service industry job where I can blob out of bed, shove a toothbrush around in my mouth a few times, and mindlessly shrug on my standard-issue polyester and nametag OR by lottery, genius, or marriage become so fantastically wealthy that someone cool and stylish does all my shopping and picks out all my outfits. Six of one, really.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Reading
My mom tells me I learned to read early. That not long after my second birthday they found me sitting by myself reading out loud from some book or other, one that I made my grandmother read to me once in the morning and once in the afternoon every day. They figured I'd just memorized it so they gave me a new book that I'd never seen before and I read it. I also occasionally freak my mom out by dredging up some really early memory -- the fridge my dad turned into a kegerator in the basement of our first house, the cast iron stove in that same house, a time when I got really sick and my dad bundled me up and drove me to his parents' house. I don't remember learning to read (though I have a vague image of writing letters on a big pad of paper on an easel in that same first house). For reference, we moved out of that house right after my brother was born. He was born when I was three or so.
I think the earliest memory I have of reading is from the year I went to pre-school in that Baptist church basement (or maybe kindergarten, the only year I ever spent in public school). My best friend then was a girl down the street named Rachel McCracken and, because kids just do, I liked her house better than mine. She had her own playroom with a slanted roof. I had my really old grandmother and a wasp nest in the ceiling of my bedroom, so we spent a lot of time at her house. I have this really random memory of one day when she picked up a book and, holding it upside down, started telling a story. She was pretending to read, but not reading -- and I knew it because I could read the words. It's also my first really vivid memory of being really, viscerally mad and I really can't explain why. I also can't explain why I have to fight the urge to correct someone when they make what I think is an obvious mistake about something completely trivial and stupid or why I can't help answering any question with a declaratory statement whether I'm sure of the answer or not.
Anyway. My reading became a bit of a party trick. One of the first days of first grade, the principal of my school trotted me down to the eighth grade classroom and made me read some anatomy chart or something. Then every day for reading period I had to go across the hall to read with the second graders, which involved getting up in front of everyone else in the class and gathering my books and leaving the room. IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. This was also the beginning of my chubby period, which persisted until . . . okay, until now. Serious psychological trauma. All because of reading.
Maybe if my mother had taught me to properly apply mascara at such a young age I'd have some interest in makeup or hair or personal appearance. Perhaps I'd be well-adjusted and fun and one of those girls who's never single for more than a few weeks and ends up marrying a square-jawed investment banker with shiny hair and straight, evenly-spaced teeth that never needed braces. Instead, she taught me to read and I became a know-it-all spaz with self-esteem issues. She's never getting those grandchildren.
I think the earliest memory I have of reading is from the year I went to pre-school in that Baptist church basement (or maybe kindergarten, the only year I ever spent in public school). My best friend then was a girl down the street named Rachel McCracken and, because kids just do, I liked her house better than mine. She had her own playroom with a slanted roof. I had my really old grandmother and a wasp nest in the ceiling of my bedroom, so we spent a lot of time at her house. I have this really random memory of one day when she picked up a book and, holding it upside down, started telling a story. She was pretending to read, but not reading -- and I knew it because I could read the words. It's also my first really vivid memory of being really, viscerally mad and I really can't explain why. I also can't explain why I have to fight the urge to correct someone when they make what I think is an obvious mistake about something completely trivial and stupid or why I can't help answering any question with a declaratory statement whether I'm sure of the answer or not.
Anyway. My reading became a bit of a party trick. One of the first days of first grade, the principal of my school trotted me down to the eighth grade classroom and made me read some anatomy chart or something. Then every day for reading period I had to go across the hall to read with the second graders, which involved getting up in front of everyone else in the class and gathering my books and leaving the room. IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. This was also the beginning of my chubby period, which persisted until . . . okay, until now. Serious psychological trauma. All because of reading.
Maybe if my mother had taught me to properly apply mascara at such a young age I'd have some interest in makeup or hair or personal appearance. Perhaps I'd be well-adjusted and fun and one of those girls who's never single for more than a few weeks and ends up marrying a square-jawed investment banker with shiny hair and straight, evenly-spaced teeth that never needed braces. Instead, she taught me to read and I became a know-it-all spaz with self-esteem issues. She's never getting those grandchildren.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
You thought I forgot, didn't you?
I have twenty-five minutes to begin making good on this. If I don't hit "publish" by midnight . . . well, sue me. Har.
Today is May 1. Ten years ago today was my last day of high school. Well, not really. Other people had school after that, but not me. Three things conspired to not only keep me out of classrooms, but also to earn me a C in senior health.
1. The high school musical.
It was Into the Woods and I was pissed about my part, but thanks to tradition, being part of the cast scored me an extra day off. Every year, in a predictable and therefore vaguely Castro-esque ritual, my high school principal descended to the creepy, disgusting dressing rooms in the basement of Merchantville Middle School after opening night and announced that we were so good that we didn't have to come to school the next day. So we stayed up all night screaming and eating and dancing around to the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack and finally passing out in a co-ed heap on the floor. We spent the next day playing Bond and You Don't Know Jack and eating at the Cherry Hill Mall food court.
2. Peer Ministry
Like most Catholic high schools, mine required four years of theology. The way to get out of doing any work the last two years was to take Supervised Ministry and Peer Ministry instead of whatever stupid other thing they offered for juniors and seniors. They've since changed the names of those classes to something warmer and fuzzier, but I suspect they still consist mainly of tests with crosswords puzzles on them and lots of group discussions about grief and adolescence. In all honesty, lack-of-content-wise those two classes couldn't hold a candle to Christian Morality (sophomore year) where we spent the last half of the semester watching Footloose in half-hour segments ala Michael Scott. At any rate, the best part about Peer Ministry was that the "final exam" was a retreat and we had to pair off and plan parts of it. Before my time, they rented a house at the shore and everyone stayed down there; the debauchery you're imagining eventually ended that particular feature of the Best Class Ever, but sitting in a church basement in Palmyra beat the hell out of Scantron.
3. Kidney Stones
I never saw the second day of that retreat because of kidney stones. Fucking kidney stones. I was 18 and got kidney stones. I landed in the hospital throwing up M&Ms (which itself was weird as I was fully in the throes of my most serious health kick ever right around then) and writhing around and shrieking at any mention of a pelvic exam. I think I scared the shit out of my dad and scored a Vicodin prescription and a date with some radioactive dye and an X-ray machine the next day. I also earned the rare and humiliating honor (three times, in fact!) of being the only woman and the youngest person by thirty years in a urologist's office. But I admit that I was probably not the only person at the prom with a bottle of narcotic painkillers in my handbag.
It also got me out of the rest of the entire semester, the only negative effect of which was that I never took my CPR certification and got a C in senior health. I took four AP classes and the only C I ever got in high school I got because I never got a crack at the dummy. I can live with it and I can't, I guess.
That was Holiday High. I don't believe we had a full week with five full days of school in my entire four years there, and I think the place remains notorious for that; so even without my advanced class-dodging skills and my renal retardation I wouldn't have been in class much. But who gives a shit when you can for the rest of your life say that you graduated from high school on May 31, 1998, but you went to your last class on May 1. Woot.
Today is May 1. Ten years ago today was my last day of high school. Well, not really. Other people had school after that, but not me. Three things conspired to not only keep me out of classrooms, but also to earn me a C in senior health.
1. The high school musical.
It was Into the Woods and I was pissed about my part, but thanks to tradition, being part of the cast scored me an extra day off. Every year, in a predictable and therefore vaguely Castro-esque ritual, my high school principal descended to the creepy, disgusting dressing rooms in the basement of Merchantville Middle School after opening night and announced that we were so good that we didn't have to come to school the next day. So we stayed up all night screaming and eating and dancing around to the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack and finally passing out in a co-ed heap on the floor. We spent the next day playing Bond and You Don't Know Jack and eating at the Cherry Hill Mall food court.
2. Peer Ministry
Like most Catholic high schools, mine required four years of theology. The way to get out of doing any work the last two years was to take Supervised Ministry and Peer Ministry instead of whatever stupid other thing they offered for juniors and seniors. They've since changed the names of those classes to something warmer and fuzzier, but I suspect they still consist mainly of tests with crosswords puzzles on them and lots of group discussions about grief and adolescence. In all honesty, lack-of-content-wise those two classes couldn't hold a candle to Christian Morality (sophomore year) where we spent the last half of the semester watching Footloose in half-hour segments ala Michael Scott. At any rate, the best part about Peer Ministry was that the "final exam" was a retreat and we had to pair off and plan parts of it. Before my time, they rented a house at the shore and everyone stayed down there; the debauchery you're imagining eventually ended that particular feature of the Best Class Ever, but sitting in a church basement in Palmyra beat the hell out of Scantron.
3. Kidney Stones
I never saw the second day of that retreat because of kidney stones. Fucking kidney stones. I was 18 and got kidney stones. I landed in the hospital throwing up M&Ms (which itself was weird as I was fully in the throes of my most serious health kick ever right around then) and writhing around and shrieking at any mention of a pelvic exam. I think I scared the shit out of my dad and scored a Vicodin prescription and a date with some radioactive dye and an X-ray machine the next day. I also earned the rare and humiliating honor (three times, in fact!) of being the only woman and the youngest person by thirty years in a urologist's office. But I admit that I was probably not the only person at the prom with a bottle of narcotic painkillers in my handbag.
It also got me out of the rest of the entire semester, the only negative effect of which was that I never took my CPR certification and got a C in senior health. I took four AP classes and the only C I ever got in high school I got because I never got a crack at the dummy. I can live with it and I can't, I guess.
That was Holiday High. I don't believe we had a full week with five full days of school in my entire four years there, and I think the place remains notorious for that; so even without my advanced class-dodging skills and my renal retardation I wouldn't have been in class much. But who gives a shit when you can for the rest of your life say that you graduated from high school on May 31, 1998, but you went to your last class on May 1. Woot.
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