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.