They were absolutely hideous.
“I was going to get you those abstinence panties,” she huffed between puffs. “The ones that say things like, ‘I’m waiting for marriage.’ But then I saw these and you have to buy the others on the net and like who’re we kidding and what if we never get married?”
“Thanks,” I said, because it was the only thing to say. It’s not like I was going to discuss my personal life with her despite this sudden burst of kindness.
I bunched them in a ball and stuffed them into the side pocket of my pack. I had no idea what to do with them, since modeling them for Vray didn’t exactly make the list. Tossing them would be wasteful, so I’d do the next best thing and give them to Clare.
“It was weird over the holidays,” Ella nodded, chugging frantically on the cigarette. “Not emailing you from Ixtapa or stopping by when I got back from the airport like I always do.”
“You could’ve emailed,” I said, even though I don’t know how I’d have felt if she had.
Anyway, I was so busy with Vray and work and all the new and, I had to admit, more open and interesting people in my world to miss alerts about her dad’s funky stomach or how she sneaked out and drank tequila shots with some college guys on the beach. Not to be snarky, but that’s how I felt.
And why shouldn’t I? She’d abandoned me so I’d done the only rational thing under the circumstances. I moved on.
“Anyway, just so you know, I think your ideas to improve the school are really good,” she said, tossing her butt into the toilet and flushing with her foot in one swift, practiced movement. “Especially the food reform, no matter what Darren and his fukwits say.”
“Thanks,” I said, completely shocked that not only had Ella cornered me on her own, but she seemed to have formed an opinion, too.
“Carmen was a bit harsh,” she went on. “I told her but she kept insisting we needed to teach you a lesson cause you were being such a pill, which you were, but in the end I guess the joke was on us cause you ditched us right back, huh?”
I didn’t know what to say. This stunning self-awareness from Ella was unprecedented in the many years I’d known her. On the one hand I wanted to encourage it, but on the other didn’t want to hurt her feelings and confirm that what she’d said was true. So I did the only sane thing in the circumstances. Got out of there pronto.
“I’ve gotta get to English,” I said, pulling open the door. “But thanks for the talk and the fancy pants.”
e a r t h g i r l
[ Jan. 11th | 08:33pm ]
[ mood | proactive ]
[ music | sunshowers — MIA ]
In the interests of my willingly captive (and captivating!) audience, some thoughts on the Rules for Radicals and their effectiveness.
Rule #3. Go outside the experience of your opponent. This will create fear, confusion and retreat. Still waiting for the retreat part, but 2 outta 3 ain’t bad!
Rule #6. A good tactic is fun. It’s important that your people are having fun. If I count my people as me, then yes, I am having fun. So far anyway! :)
Rule #9. The threat is more terrifying than the action. Talk about understatements, my campaign to ban vending machines has made me the school leper. And though it sounds gross and sad, it’s also sort of thrilling.
Oddly, being radical doesn’t feel all that radical. It kind of seems like being honest and full of integrity.
link read 6 | post
www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/rules.html
altalake 01-11 23:58
I recommend subvertising, the modern art of ad and billboard defacement. A great means of expression + getting your yayas out. www.billboardliberation.com www.cacophony.org
lacklusterlulu 01.12 00:57
Been there, done that and totally agree! Except for the getting caught and in trouble for vandalism part, it was seriously kewl. Radicalz Rule!
seventeen_
It took about two weeks of research and location scouting before I finally hatched my biggish radical action – an anti-SUV campaign, which in my head I called Project U-SUX. But never on paper or online since I didn’t want to leave a trail or do anything that might incriminate me in any way, especially with the parentals. Wouldn’t want to alert them to my new subversive activities or I’d risk being put under house arrest for like forever, or at least until I was twenty-one.
So despite my nonstop head butting at school, I was heads down at home to keep them off the scent. And my sweet compliant doppelganger personality had been working like a charm. That and because the units were supremely busy. Dad with his annual squash tournament and Mom with the debut of yet another home decorating and useless stuff store.
Needless to say, if there were an award for cool-as-a-cucumber daughter-of-the-year, I was the hands-down winner. Oh, how little they knew the new me.
But to do it right, to really pull off the U-SUX plan, I needed help. And that’s where Vray would come in. To be my accomplice, not only in love but also in the battle against forces destroying the community and the planet (and almost him!). This would not only deepen our shared commitment to the cause, but to each other.
“So, um, this a sex thing?” Vray asked hopefully as I led him across the backyard toward the big oak and the remains of my old treehouse.
I shook my head. There was about six inches of old snow hardened to crusty after days of melt-freeze. We shuffled across the slippery white surface, suspended momentarily before our boots crunched loudly through to the ground. Shhhhh-twink-unk! I loved that sound and that feeling. It was like controlled falling.
“You never know,” Vray said as I dropped his hand and started climbing the ladder nailed to the tree trunk. “Unconsciously it might be what you had in mind, though you could’ve brought a blanket.”
“It’s not,” I said seriously as he practically climbed over me to get up the tree. The weight of him against my legs and bum was distracting, but I refused to be distracted.
This wasn’t a game. I was on an important mission.
“So, what’s with the secret hideout?” he asked, pushing himself up into what I called the Moon Room when I was little. He mostly used his good arm since even though his collarbone was way better, it still wasn’t one hundred percent.
“Just a special place and I have to tell you something special, away from nosy sisters and parents and just, people.”
“All right,” he said, plopping down and shushing himself back against the wall. “Give ‘er.”
“Well, when we first met, you told me how they were going to drill for oil in Alaska and confuse and kill all the caribou. Then all this weird weather keeps happening everywhere and that voodoo flu epidemic crosses the ocean and then out of nowhere you get taken out by an SUV,” I said, breathlessly realizing there was so much to explain.
“Heap of shitty coincidences for sure.”
“You don’t believe in coincidences. Everything happens for reasons, always,” I insisted.
“Yeah, jerks don’t know how to drive.”
“No, everything happens according to some bigger epic plan, fate and destiny and karmic reasons. I get pelted with garbage on my bike, you get nailed by an S.U.X. It has to mean something and there have to be consequences and the amazing thing is we can create consequences.”
Vray was leaning forward now, looking at me very intensely.
“And?” he asked with a tone that suggested he was pretty amped about everything I was saying. Exactly the way I knew he would be.
“This,” I said, pulling my one, and so far only, hand-blocked, magic-markered U-SUX poster out of my pocket and unfolding it.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“I’ve done some research. Reconnaissance or spying even, mostly on these midtown GM dealerships. I picked them cause GM and Chev make so many SUVs and also Hummers plus they own Cadillac who make those stupid Navigators and Escalade things. And I found this place and it’s amazing. No videocameras on the far lot, so I thought we could go
really late at night and put these on the cars.”
“What, like under the windshield wipers?”
“No, that won’t do anything. I want to paste them over windows and make a real mess,” I said, my arms flying around now to show the magnitude of the venture. “But the glue has to be serious, not something they can just blast away with a powerwasher, so I asked the guy at Thompson’s Hardware and he says this epoxy mix is so crazy sticky that if you get it on your fingers it rips the flesh right off so we’ll need to wear medical gloves, but I’m all over that, too. Already scoffed a box from my dad’s stash in the basement.”
Vray stared at me for a long time, paying very close attention to every detail.
“So? What do you think?” I was almost bursting with excitement.
“It’s completely lame, no offense.”
“It’s not lame. It’s proactive and radical!”
“What, like your pop-machine ban? And some tree-hugging class? People are on the frontlines of this battle risking jail time by breaking into medical labs to free animals or staring down chainsaws to protest logging practices. C’mon, gluing posters on windshields? It’s total amateur hour.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! My open-minded, incredibly progressive and lovely boyfriend was being such a...asshole! It was like someone had snatched the real Vray and replaced him with some deviant, snippy replicant.
Besides, who was he to talk? Aside from playing in some crappy band at a protest gig here and there, I didn’t see him rescuing crash test bunnies or saving any trees. As if he was some big front-line cutting-edge radical!
“I bring you to my special place, tell you my secret plans and you’re slamming me?” I said, surprised by my own anger. I couldn’t believe it. We were having our first ever fight.
“You should’ve brought me here for sex,” he half laughed.
“You can leave anytime you like,” I snapped.
“That’s probably a good idea,” he said, pulling on his hat and sliding his bum toward the entrance. “Best you’ve had today, actually.”
“That was just plain mean,” I yelled as he backed down the ladder.
“I’ll call you later,” he called back across the yard, over the crunch-crunch of his boots. “After you calm down and realize I’m right.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” I shouted back at him.
The jerk.
e a r t h g i r l
[ Jan. 20th | 5:16pm ]
[ mood | #@&+!^* ]
[ music | Rockstar Boyfriend — Tuuli ]
Rule #5. Ridicule is a very potent weapon in the radical arsenal. It infuriates and embarrasses the opposition.
This is apparently extremely true. Astonishingly actually. However, it’s important to remember, the *organizer* is not the *opposition.* Shocking though it is, sometimes radicals get a bit confused that they’re all on the same side. Maybe it’s the pressure of being on the leading edge.
So remember fellow radicals, united we stand, divided we are royally screwed. And get bruised feelings.
link read 3 | post
Vague-a-bond 01-20 19:02
What’s up bean? You don’t read like the usual bubbly you. Hope there’s no trouble in your paradise of *truth* and love. Big Hugs, Ms. C.
e a r t h g i r l
[ January 20th | 07:09pm ]
Whoa, Cassie! Are you a witch (Glinda-good-witch) or psychic superpower mind reader or something? Little blip confirmed, but nothing that won’t resolve shortly. Me thinks. Me hopes anyway!
To say Vray’s response to my genius idea was not the reaction I expected would be the understatement of my life. Even though I was absolutely furious, I found myself crying uncontrollably when I took a bubblebath to calm my jangled nerves. My hot tears dripped onto the mountains of suds, melting holes to the tepid bathwater.
I felt so defeated and so frustrated I felt defeated.
After my soak and sulk, I calmed down. I realized my idea was undercooked and yes, okay, maybe babyish. A germ instead of a virus. Paper and glue? This wasn’t an arts and crafts project. It was a powerful, radical statement. More like spraypaint and smashed windows (without actually smashing windows). And maybe Vray’s reaction was just his way of pushing me without being pushy.
I mean clearly he had been involved in some defiant things before he met me. How else to explain the superhero confabs with Finn and Eric. From hearing them play it obviously wasn’t for the band to practice. Maybe it was all so extreme and subversive, he didn’t tell me or include me because he loved me too much to put me at risk.
Still, he didn’t have to laugh at Project U-SUX. But rather than wallow, I decided to study for tomorrow’s math test. So I hunkered down at my desk and tried to concentrate and pretend everything was normal. That trigonometry was the balm for my bruised heart.
“Hey there,” Mom said with that annoying cheery mom voice as she suddenly appeared in my space despite the partially closed door. “What’s going on?
“Math test,” I mumbled.
“Then you could probably use more light,” she said helpfully as she unhelpfully turned on the light, making me flinch from its brightness.
“Not a good time,” I said, hoping she’d retreat before she saw my puffy red eyes.
“Never is with you,” she sighed as she sat down on my bed.
How is it parents had that uncanny knack for appearing and annoying you at the most inopportune moments? Was it genetic? Radar? Some kind of weird embedded chip?
“Honey, I need to talk to you. I mean, we need to talk,” Mom said.
This was definitely going to be a doozy so I didn’t even bother to look up from my book. As if that would stop her. Ha!
“I don’t want you to feel like I’m barging in on you or ambushing you, but we never seem to talk any more,” she said, clearly aware that she was doing both those things, but not seeming to care. “I’d have called or texted but your cell is always off, which isn’t a bad thing though it’s a bit odd.”
“First you complain I use it too much. Now you complain I don’t use it enough?” I was so not in the mood for this right now. Agh!
“You’re right. It’s just you’ve just been so remote lately. You do know we can talk about anything.” Mom emphasized the word anything and for a fleeting moment I wondered if she’d been going to parenting-your-teen talks.
“Okay,” I answered, suspecting this could definitely be the dreaded sex talk we’d mercifully managed to avoid all these years. “I get it and no, I’m not on drugs and yes, I’m totally fine, thank you.”
“We know that. It’s just I couldn’t help but notice how close you and Vray have gotten recently,” she continued, trying to sound like my pal. “And we’ve respected that and given you space and trusted you to have good instincts and make good choices.”
I nodded and bit my tongue and tried to pretend her concern was cute and endearing and not as annoying and intrusive as it actually was. Especially at this particular moment in my life, given that my relationship (if there still was one) was now hanging by a thread.
I could feel my tummy tighten.
“I’m not going to ask if you’ve done it or even what you’ve done because I really don’t want to know,” she insisted, talking quickly enough for me to notice she was probably almost as uncomfortable as she was making me. “That’s private between you and Vray.”
“Good,” I sighed, as I put my face in the book I was not reading.
“It’s just I remember what it was like to be young and think everything was so urgent and important,” she stormed on like a tornado in a trailer park.
“Vray is important,” I said, immediately regretting that I was buying into her baiting. And suddenly feeling like I wasn’t going to hold it together. Plus I’d forgotten how effective the silent treatment was in situations like these. Dum-dum me.
“I know,” she said. “And I’ve told you we think he’s lovely and good to you.”
“Glad you approve,”
I snorted, even though I could care less if they did or not. Like they even understood me at all. Like they even had the first clue.
“I just hope you’re being responsible about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases, not to mention your emotional needs,” Mom said with the formality of a well-practiced speech, even though she was trying to act all casual. “Your emotional well being is as important as the other stuff, you know. More important, maybe.”
Yeah, tell me about it, I thought, doing my best to keep myself from crumbling into a sobbing mess while willing her out of the room.
“Aw, Mom, do we have to talk about this?” I groaned instead. At this very moment when I may have just had my heart crushed and stomped on by this boyfriend you’re telling me is so lovely and amazing.
“Yes,” she nodded a bit nervously.
“No, we don’t,” I said emphatically.
“Okay, then,” she said, sounding as relieved as I was. “But if you want to talk, about anything at all, you know where I am.”
Yeah, yeah, I thought, nodding and waving her away. Just don’t expect me to come looking for you any time soon.
eighteen_
It had been almost twenty-four hours and I still hadn’t heard from Vray. Nada, by phone, email, text or carrier pigeon. I was shocked and heartsick. And I felt silly and ashamed of how far I’d fallen. Suspended on the surface only to crash to the hard, frozen ground beneath.
I wasn’t sure what to do besides pretend everything was normal and cross my fingers and toes it actually would be again. I suppose I could have just caved and called him, but that would make me like every other stupid girl who groveled her way back into the cuddleship. Plus I wasn’t the one in the wrong.
I wasn’t the one making fun of him and his plans. His ideas. His integrity and commitment.
After school I took the bus to the co-op for my shift, happy to be busy and not waiting by the phone. But when I walked past the notice board where Vray and I had first met and mind-melded, it felt like a punch in the gut.
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