Bullying

I was bullied, in different ways, throughout most of my childhood.

When I was a little girl, in preschool or kindergarten, I remember a girl named Taylor. Everyone liked Taylor; she brought her Mommy's makeup to school with her and let everybody try it. One day, a group of girls were gathered around her as usual under the jungle gym at recess, partaking in her makeup. I decided I wanted to join.

I walked up to Taylor shyly and smiled, saying, "Can I join your group?"

Taylor sneered. "No," she said. "You can go make your own group over THERE." She pointed across the playground.

One of my friends, Savannah, was sitting in the group. I turned to her, silently asking her to come with me. Savannah looked down in shame, and didn't move. She wanted to be friends with the popular girl far more than she wanted to be friends with me.

I sat in the corner by myself, drawing a circle in the wood chips and watching the other girls play together. I let just a few tears leak out.

Taylor didn't like me, it turned out, because I got better grades than she did. She got all the other kids in our class to avoid me, so no one would work or play with me anymore.

Later, in middle school, lots of people made fun of me. I wasn't like the other kids -- I didn't act popular enough. I had frizzy hair, glasses, and braces. I didn't wear makeup. I wore jeans. I didn't want to date anyone. I was quiet, shy, and retiring. I was nice to my teachers. Sometimes I got in trouble for reading during boring lectures. I didn't fit their ideal image of what a young girl should be.

Science class was hell. I was surrounded by popular people at my lab table. They would demand help with their homework, all the while making fun of things like my appearance and my lack of interest in dating. They let me know that no one would ever want to date me anyway. The teacher never even noticed.

Once, in history class, a girl started making fun of my appearance right in front of the mostly silent classroom. My face turned to one of flame. The teacher said nothing, but he did pat me on the shoulder as he went by in a way I'm sure was meant to be comforting.

Another time, on my way to the cafeteria, two boys started laughing loudly at my hair, making fun of me.

And another time, a girl was talking to me at lunch and she said brightly, "You know, people call you a freak, but I don't think you're a freak at all!" I pretended I knew people called me a freak behind my back -- I hadn't.

So that was me in middle school. I was the Ugly Freak.

The laughter continued into high school, but by then it had faded, gotten quieter. I never reacted to the bullying, I had friends and was fairly well adjusted. I grew slowly out of my awkwardness, physically and otherwise. I wasn't a very interesting target.

I wish I could say I had some magic answer to the problem of bullying, but I don't. I don't think asking the two kids to "talk it out" would have done a single damn thing to waylay any of the bullies I encountered. I also know that just because you stand up to a bully doesn't necessarily mean that they will go away. Bullies usually come in the form of people who have a very set idea of how the world works and take to mocking people who disrupt that worldview for them.

And I don't really know how to fix that.

Vices

I went to get coffee at Starbucks with my sister today. So I thought I'd do a blog post on my favorite ice-cold summer frappuccinos. I like to take the regular frappuccinos and do something a little different with them. Here are my favorite, simple modified fixes:

- Mocha frappuccino with hazelnut OR coffee frappuccino with mocha and hazelnut

- Vanilla bean frappuccino with toffee nut (caramel can be added if desired)

- Java chip frappuccino with cinnamon dolce, toffee nut, and whipped cream blended in

There are some Starbucks drinks that don't need to be modified. The caramel ribbon crunch is good as it is; so (on the hot side) is the salted caramel mocha. But those things already have something a little bit extra added to them. For the crunch, it's the ribbon and nuts; for the salted caramel, it's the salt and chocolate.

The flavor I like least is pumpkin spice. I'm not a big fan of their mint coffee either.

Want to know a secret? I'm not technically supposed to have espresso at all. It's dangerous for manic-depressives, because it can induce mania. But hey. Gotta live a little, right?

I have two vices, and they're espresso and long hot showers and baths that waste a lot of water. And I'm not giving up either of them. It could be much worse.

Frankenstein

I read this article and liked it, about Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein:

http://amysmartgirls.com/mary-shelley-meet-the-teenage-girl-who-invented-science-fiction/

It's not a perfect article. It glosses over a lot of the little uncomfortable details, like the fact that Percy was married when he and Mary ran away together, and a lot of the sad ones, like the deaths of Mary's children. But it's a good introduction to a strong, interesting, and controversial feminist lady.

I've got to admit, I liked Mary's book better than any of the Frankenstein movies. The movies butcher the story.

(SPOILER ALERT)

For example, in the book, when Victor Frankenstein creates the monster he is a young, lonely, and brilliant man at university -- not an aged scientist with an assistant. This makes much more sense because Victor's age makes him foolish enough to think he can control anything, his loneliness isolates him from adverse opinions, his obsession with learning science drives him, and the recent death of his mother makes him reckless enough to try to revive a dead corpse.

That's right. Tim Burton's Frankenweenie is a more accurate representation of Mary's masterpiece than a lot of the original Frankenstein films.

The monster is much more human in the novels. He is intelligent, can carry on conversations, and contemplates his own existence. He is capable of kindness as well as ferociousness. The reason he becomes so murderous is because Victor abandoned him to a world that would reject him because of his appearance. This adds weight to the monster's kills -- they become more meaningful, and frankly more frightening, when a thinking person did them. There's also a little moral in there about the power of judging based on appearance.

The monster decides to murder everyone Victor cares about, in revenge for his abandonment and bad treatment at the hands of humans. We get to know every single person murdered, because they all love Victor, and there's a slow agony as one by one they are taken from him in horrific and methodical ways. This makes, in my opinion, for a much better horror story than just one in which random people are killed by a faceless being for no apparent reason.

It's just a completely different story when you read the book. I don't have any of the movies, but I have the book. I seriously recommend the read for anyone interested in the beginning pulses of horror and science fiction.

Death, Loss, Grief

We found out our dog had cancer.

He was a very sweet yellow lab named Wellington. He wasn't very old -- only about ten or so. We found out he had to be put down.

My sister spent lots of time with him and took pictures of them together. Because of her stutter and learning disabilities, she'd had trouble making friends at school, and he had been her closest buddy. He was very quiet, slow, and sleepy, like he was in an enormous amount of pain.

The next day, he was taken to the vet to be put down. We cremated the body and put the ashes into little gold heart necklaces.

It took our family a long time to move on from that. (We eventually gained another dog, and took in a starving stray cat who kept following us home.) I remember, in the aftermath, feeling very strangely. I kept waiting for rain to pour from the sky, for the world to end.

But it didn't. Things just carried on as normal, and it left me numb.

The same thing happened when my grandfather passed away. He was sitting in his armchair one afternoon and he just stopped breathing. His heart just quit on him. Death was almost instantaneous.

This loss was very sudden -- we hadn't been expecting him to pass away. Everyone seemed terribly upset, and yet again I didn't know how to feel. The numbness had returned -- the feeling that the world was normal, and it was hard to process that this terrible thing had happened.

My grandfather was buried in a quiet green graveyard which carried its own pond. The land was peaceful and pretty; ducks flew over the area. He was buried next to a little blonde girl who had died when she was three years old. Death doesn't discriminate. I was sitting in the back row at his funeral -- there were only two rows, it was a rather small one -- and I watched people come up in turns and talk about my grandfather, wearing black.

His sister was nearly inconsolable. She was crying and had to be supported as she came up to talk about her brother. He was her older brother and he had always protected her and looked out for her. She kept saying how much she would miss him, and suddenly it hit me that this person was dead. Death -- death hit me. I began crying, sobbing very loudly, for the first time.

I processed death that one time, and then I never cried again.

I was sad, but didn't cry, when my Nana passed away. Her death was expected. She died slowly and painfully in a hospital bed. We went to visit her sometimes, and I made sure to let her know how much I loved her.

"I know, darlin'," she said, tired and distant. She was ready to go by the time she passed.

If I could describe death, I would describe it as heavy. Death is exhausting -- at least for the bereaved, if not for the person who is dead. I'm not much of a cryer, so death is hard for me. I'm too stoical to express much of the distressed emotion that so many other women do. This is not a positive -- expressing emotion is our first step in getting rid of it.

But I can't do that. I try to cry, and no tears will come. There's only the heaviness -- the inexpressible, indescribable heaviness.