Message from Alexis' Father

Alexis has ulcerative colitis and  has had a recent flare. She's been struggling since she came back from her Catalina trip on around June 13. Things seemed to be clearing up, but looking back, she started to become whiny  yesterday. I should have noticed,  but was busy with a work project, and her mother was out of town until late last night.

Today my wife and I attended a birthday party for our Godchild. Alexis was unable to attend the party because for  one thing, she really wasn't feeling good enough to go anywhere, and for another, the host of the party was concerned that even with ulcerative colitis being a non-communicable illness, in her weakened state she could be carrying something either viral or bacterial that would be communicable.  I understand after reading her blog that she took this very personally. Had I known how she felt about being forcibly excluded from the party, I would have at least stayed home with her. I would have stayed with her also had I known how ill she was. Alexis doesn't come right out and tell us that an illness is getting worse. It's up to us to figure it  out on our own. Sometimes we catch it and sometimes we miss it. This time we missed.

Once Alexis figured out today that she needed medical attention, she went through the motions of calling us, knowing we probably wouldn't have cell phones close by and that, with the party being held outside, the hosts wouldn't hear their home phone ringing. She could have driven the approximately one mile to the site of the party, or could even have driven herself to the  hospital had she insisted on such independence, but instead  decided for some reason that she should drive herself to Fresno to seek medical treatment. She doesn't know anyone, doctor or otherwise, in Fresno.  About an hour into her trip, she could not drive any longer. She pulled off the highway to  a fast food restaurant to use their bathroom. An employee found her unconscious on the restroom floor.  Because of the route she had taken, the hospital where she usually seeks treatment was the one where anyone seriously ill is automatically transported. 

She had significant colon bleeding, due primarily to a particular ulcer, although the entire transverse colon is ulcerated.  Her doctor was able to perform a relatively noninvasive surgical procedure through the use of a colonoscope. She's comfortable now and is already more cheerful than she was when you last heard from here. Because there's no incision, she'll be released from the hospital tomorrow, although she'll be mostly on bed rest for a week.

I've read her recent writings. The "Mrs. Moore" incidents and the others related to my relatives not treating her well and poking fun at her appearance really happened as she described them. She doesn't mention, and maybe because she genuinely believes what she says to be the truth, that we would not have stood for any of it, either the family harassment or Mrs. Moore's abuse, had we known. Mrs. Moore, despite being middle-aged, was in only her second year of teaching when she taught Alexis. Due largely to the presence and actions of my wife at school board meetings, Mrs. Moore did not finish the  year with the school district for which she was employed and, to the best of my knowledge, has never been able to renew her credential because she was fired for cause. Had we known earlier about the pattern of abuse, we would have intervened earlier.

Alexis is telling the truth when she says she was not a pretty newborn. What two lb. two oz. baby is pretty?A baby of that size is doing well to be alive. It was too much to ask that  she be cute as well. Once she hit about eight months she was actually pretty cute though she did seem to be surrounded by a dirt-attracting magnetic field.  She is now maturing into a beautiful young woman.  I don't think I've ever seen a girl both so pretty and so smart except for her mother. She is not an ugly duckling by any stretch of the imagination.

When Alexis is ill, she becomes very immature. Ms. Russo, I believe you commented that how Alexis sees herself and how the rest of us see he seem to be very different. She only sees herself in that way when she's sick.  Tomorrow morning she will be the confident and feisty young woman she normally is. Thanks to her Twitter and Facebook friends for caring about her. I'm reluctant to name names, but I'll try. Becca, Donna, Marianne, Jaci,  OzDoc, Knotty, Amelia, and her hero Judge Alex, thanks  for being there for my little girl. Your support is appreciated more than you know.

 

A Rude Post

                                                      

what I'm likely missing right now

Last night I wrote a lengthy - entirely too lengthy - post about an unpleasant part of my childhood. I apologize for the length and understand that it's too long and no one wants to read it because it's so long. It's wrong to solicit compliments, which is how that post is likely to be viewed, anyway. I try not to solicit compliments in general, but if no one ever says anything about a person's appearance except for the wack job relatives who look for new and unique ways to criticize the way I look, what is a person supposed to believe about his or her appearance?  My aunt would say it's all about being satisfied with oneself and never mind what anyone else thinks, but if no one else thinks you're nice-looking, you're not.

I asked if it was too personal to post. One very nice person told me she left a comment and to tell her if I didn't get it. I told her. Her reply eventually appeared.. Another person told me it was too long for a blog. I could have told her that. what I had wanted to know was if I was putting more personal information out there than was appropriate. I never got an actual answer to that. She did, however, give me her cell phone number in case I wanted to talk, which was kind. I may call her tomorrow. Becca responded to the post.

It doesn't help that I weight 89 pounds and have braces on my teeth. My weight should go up eventually, but I've been fighting a nasty case of colitis, that has made keeping weight on virtually impossible. I've lost four pounds even with IV fluids when I was at my worst.

My dad went on a rant last night about how damn lucky I am that I'm medically insured through my parents because of the cost of all my  medical treatments. I didn't realize that's another thing for which I'm supposed to be eternally grateful. I need to keep a list posted in my bedroom, because there are too many for me to remember off the top of my head. I asked him if it would make him happier if I became a Christian Scientist or member of one of those Churches of the Firstborn that do not seek medical treatment. He just got even madder. Then I asked him if Matthew had pledged his undying gratitude for insurance paying for the CT scan last week when he thought he might have appendicitis and he really just was constipated. My dad started to yell at me more, but then laughed and admitted that Matthew's complaint was quite lame. Matthew's had close to the same dollar amount in medical bills that I've had (not counting the extended stay in the loony bin; the school district's insurance carrier paid for that one, and it was costly) even though there's never been anything actually wrong with him. He's had a few minor sports injuries, but other than that, he's just a complete hypochondriac. And it's only going to get worse, because he's going to medical school. He learn about a host of new illnesses to imagine he has. When he first meets his cadaver, he'll try to find out what he or she died of, and that will be the first new illness he develops. Mark my words.

I'm feeling major animosity toward a particular extended relative. For one thing, we had a bet that the first of us to reach 100 pounds would pay the other 100 bucks. It was looking pretty good for me for awhile, as I'm still growing, but then she got pregnant. I should have taken that as my clue and had major mofo breast implants or something that would have given me added weight before she started gaining, but I didn't; I played fairly.  I'm not saying she should not have gotten pregnant; I'm just saying that ten to one it wouldn't have counted in  my favor if I had gotten pregnant and reached 100 pounds, so why should she win by virtue of a pregnancy? We argued, but I decided to give in. I sent the money in an envelope with my brother when he took some garden produce to her house last week right after his illness ended. I received no acknowledgment, incidentally. I probably did the right thing by paying up, as I don't wish to be known as a welcher, but I'll never feel quite the same about either this relative or about her husband.

There's a birthday party in the extended family today. I was invited. My pregnant aunt is staying inside and watching the action through a window. Nevertheless, even though ulcerative colitis is not contagious, and even though pregnant aunt would be inside, sitting on a recliner, while I would be outside, sitting on some sort of folding chair or lounge chair, it was decided that my immunity might be compromised, and I might pick up a virus that might possibly crawl through the window and infect my pregnant aunt. As much as I'd love to give my pregnant aunt the blame, it doesn't sound like her logic. I suspect credit for the uninvitation belongs either to her husband or her father-in-law. which ever one it was, I don't like him anymore. It's not so much that I was dying to attend a kiddie birthday party. It's just the humiliation of being uninvited that makes me sad. My parents are there now, undoubtedly having a great time.

I'm having internal bleeding, and my parents aren't answering their cell phones. I dare not drive over to the party to talk to them lest I affect the pregnant person or anyone else with some unknown virus, so I'm calling my gastroenterologist's emergency weekend number. I certainly hope it doesn't cause my parents' insurance to be billed.

Some days, week, months, years, or lifetimes suck.

Hoping and Praying For Swanhood: The Life of a Really Homely Child

                                                        

a cygnet, baby swan,  or ugly duckling of lore

I fear this will come across as another of my self-pitying posts.  Such is not my intent. It is rather my purpose to put into words the plight of many girls. Boys go through the same thing, I suppose, but less a premium is put upon beauty for a boy. No one wants to be ugly, but girls are expected to be pretty, and if they're not, it seems to be an expectation that they will devote every ounce of energy that they're not already devoting to being sweeter than everyone else to trying to be pretty.

I actually had a fifth grade teacher who once looked directly at me as she told the entire class, "Not all girls are pretty. There is at least one girl in this class who is not pretty, but if she would just be sweet and kind more of the time, people would forget that she isn't pretty."  In this case, I don't think it was my state of paranoia that caused me to think she was staring straight at me as she made her pronouncement, as several other students confirmed that she had been looking at me and must have been talking about me when she made her pronouncement.

"You're not that ugly," one girl awkwardly tried to console me at recess. "I don't know why she had to pick on you."

I didn't bother mentioning this particular indignity at home because: 1) The teacher was always right unless I was being abused, and I doubted at the time that this indiscretion would have been considered abuse in my parents' perspectives. In retrospect, it might have been a battle they would have chosen to fight. 2) I feared my brother might have thought it was really funny. We were at an age in which we didn't get along particularly well.  Being laughed at for being funny-looking at school was bad enough. I didn't really want to deal with it at home as well.

It all started when I was born, really.  I was a twin. One of two things happened in utero. Either my brother was conceived in an earlier cycle than I, or he had the  far better-functioning placenta. Either way, there was  huge size discrepancy. My brother was a beautiful over six-and-a-half pound baby, while I weighed in at well under two-and-a-half pounds. Whether a preemie or just a very small baby, there probably hasn't been a pretty two-pounder born at least since the troglodyte era if even then. I had that hair that anorexics also have, called lanugo, all over my body, but none on my head where hair belongs. My skin was red or purple, depending upon the body part.  My dad didn't care that I was ugly -- he probably didn't even notice -- because he was so thrilled that I was going to survive.  My mom was scared to death of me. I looked to her too much like the twins she had lost when she delivered them before 23 weeks.

Eventually I stopped looking like a space alien, though I still wasn't what anyone would call pretty, or not really even very cute.  It might have been OK  -- lots of children have average looks -- had Matthew not been almost ridiculously good-looking. Uncle Mahonri was fond of referring to me, out of earshot of anyone who would care,  as the ugly duckling who never turned into a swan  well into my teens -- until my Uncle Steve heard it and threatened to punch him in the face if he ever said it again. Various relatives (on my dad's side, of course) distinguished my brother and me by referring to Matthew as  "the cute one" and me as "the other one."  They could have called us "the girl" and "the boy,"  or "the big one" and "the little one," or even "Matthew," and "Alexis," but they preferred "the cute one" and "the other one."  They presumably thought they were being charitable  because they weren't saying what they were really thinking, which was  "the cute one" and "the ugly one."  This continued until I was at least nine. I think my Aunt Joanne finally threw a something of a fit one day when someone said it one time too many, and after that, they mostly stopped referring to me as anything at all.

As a baby I was a cue ball. When my hair came in, it was sparse and white and straight as a board, though it curled up a bit if I got sweaty, particularly when I was sleeping. One day when I was  five, the most curious thing happened.
I woke up one summer morning with hair that was noticeably curlier than it had been before. The next morning it was even more so. The progression continued until I was basically an unkempt Shirley Temple. My mom tried keeping my hair pulled into a pony tail or braids, or even nicely combing the curls, but nothing she did with my hair ever looked right for more than five minutes.

Compounding the curliness of my hair was that I had a protective layer of skin many children have but don't retain into adulthood (my skin now burns just like that of any white girl) that tans very easily and very darkly. My parents slathered me with sunblock with no effect. With my wildly curly blonde (though no longer tow-headed) hair, dark skin (we got sunshine for roughly eight-and-a-half months of each year, and we often spent a couple of weeks during Christmas vacation in Fort Lauderdale, providing even more sun exposure) and blue eyes, I had the look of a biracial child. When our nuclear family was together, people often commented, as though it was in any way their business, about my being adopted, and asked what country I was from. This was in spite of my facial features looking a great deal like those of my mother. If anything, it would have been more likely that my mom had a fling with a bi-racial (you need blue eyes in the DNA on both sides to produce a bona fide blue-eyed kid) Maytag repairman than that I had been adopted.

Things continued through my early grades. I heard the remark I've reported in an earlier blog in which a child noted, as the class looked at a picture of a tornado, that the tornado looked like Alexis because it was skinny with things sticking out all over it, and everything around it was a mess. The teachers there started calling me "The Tornado Child."  It was another indiscretion I should have shared with my parents, but it happened at a time when my mom was fighting leukemia, and it seemed wrong to bother my parents with something so trivial at the time, so I just dealt with it in my own way, which was to be sad and say nothing. We moved at the end of that year, so I at least didn't have to listen to anyone calling me "The Tornado Child."  What I heard about my  presumed racial makeup wasn't much better, but I wasn't necessarily the prime target who was picked on. The overweight children and those who struggled with academics  were treated much worse than I was.  I was self-absorbed enough that it didn't occur to me to feel sorry for the actual biracial kids who faced taunting on a daily basis when teachers weren't around to deal with it.

The issues were only at school or when I was with my dad's extended family, and we weren't with them all that much, so it's not as though my childhood  was one of nothing but misery. I had far more good times than bad. I was still in gymnastics, so I had limited time to dwell on the issues of my appearance, and there was a mother of an African-American girl in my gymnastics club in fourth and fifth grade who could do my hair so that it stayed in place for at least the length of a competition.

Then when I was nine, in the autumn of my fifth grade year, the incident occurred where, on a bet from my brother, I did a  back walkover and a cartwheel on the highest part of the roof of our two-story home. My parents were oblivious inside the house, but a neighbor walked out his front door just in time to see me finishing the cartwheel. He got my brother and me off the roof, then rang the doorbell to alert my parents as to what their daughter had been doing on the roof of their house.

One of the consequences of my rooftop gymnastics display was that I was pulled immediately from all gymnastics and tumbling programs. My parents had already paid nonrefundable fees for the remainder of the calendar year, but they didn't care. I would never touch another piece of gymnastics apparati until I turned eighteen.  In retrospect, I don't fault them for what at the time seemed to me to be an extreme reaction. What it did, however, was give me far too much time on my hands. At least in part because it was the year I was in Mrs. Moore's fifth-grade class, it was excess time I used to obsess over my appearance.

My dad learned of a marvelous invention known as a hair straightener -- one of those things that basically irons a person's hair flat -- and he bought one for me. He learned to use it relatively well, and it did a decent job at straightening my curly mop, although if my hair got sweaty or damp, the curls came back. Also, there was the problem of my dad not being there every day. My mom wanted no part of the hair straightener. I did the best I could, but my best wasn't all that good, and I kept burning myself. After about the fourth visible burn, Mrs. Moore told me she would report my family to Child Protective Services if I came to school with another burn. She had threatened me with CPS over my weight as well, but I think she forgot about that.

Our family had already had one encounter with CPS the time I sat on my brother's Mardi Gras beads all the way from Las Vegas through a traffic jam and snowstorm in the Tehachapis most of the way to Fresno. A creepy girl peaking over the restroom stall saw the bead marks on my bottom and ran all over the school and into the office telling everyone I had shingles. Somehow the school nurse became involved, and when I refused to show her, she assumed the worst and called CPS.  CPS showed up on our doorstep and the matter was cleared up, though not without my showing them my nude bottom under heavy protest.

Anyway, just about the worst thing anyone could have threatened me with was calling CPS on my family. I didn't realize a teacher was allowed to use it as a threat against a child essentially as a disciplinary tactic, and I now know that she wasn't. Regardless, I would not risk burning myself again because I didn't want another CPS encounter. My dad straightened my hair on the days he was home, and the rest of the time it was braids or ponytails that pulled out of their moorings and were a complete mess within an hour.

I spent a lot of my spare time during those days in my room, looking at myself in the mirror and crying. My mom was working full-time after recovering from Graves' Disease and leukemia. It was all she could do to get dinner on the table and get us to bed. If my eyes were red, I doubt she noticed. When I did complain about my looks, her response would be something to the effect of, "Alexis, you look just like me. How do you think it makes me feel to hear you complaining about how ugly you are? It's just like you're telling me I'm ugly." I didn't want to tell my mother she was ugly, so I stopped complaining to her.

My dad would agree that I looked like my mom, and would say, "I would never have asked your mom out if she hadn't been beautiful. Of course I think you're beautiful, too."
But I didn't believe him. I thought it was just one of those things a parent had to say to his kid.

Then we had picture day. After the original kindergarten picture day, when I ended up looking like a clown in my picture, my dad had volunteered in my classroom every day on picture day so he could keep me from being pushed into a mud puddle or messing up my hair worse than usual before pictures were taken. His schedule made doing so impossible that day -- he would be out of town for the week. My mom put my hair in braids and hoped for the best.

I knew my pictures weren't good, but it seemed pointless to worry too much about it. Then, maybe a month later -- before Christmas, anyway -- picture packets were delivered to the school.  Mrs. Moore looked at each one as she called the child forward to pick up his or her packet. It was the child's decision as to whether or not to show the packet, in which the largest picture was displayed through a cut-out, to the class. Then Mrs. Moore came to my packet. Her face turned red as she stood. She shrieked at me, "Do you even own a comb, Alexis?" She held the packet up for all the children to see, then, as they laughed, she walked to my desk and slapped it face-down on the surface, very hard.

My brother and I had been attending the same school we attended the year before because we had moved about two months into the school year. The plan was that we would finish the school year there, then switch  the next year to our neighborhood school of residence. The school was maybe six miles from my house.

I was supposed to go to the school's after-school daycare program, but instead I walked off campus. Because I didn't buy milk for lunch that day, I had just enough change to get onto the municipal bus, and it was a direct ride home with no transfers.  I had no key, but I knew where the spare was kept. I let myself into the house, locked the door behind me, then dropped to the floor and cried for several minutes.  Then I got up. I knew I needed to do something.

I grabbed the scissors from a utility drawer in the kitchen. My original intention had been to remove as much of my hair as I could possibly get with the scissors. If I didn't get enough with the scissors I could look in my parents' bathroom to see if there was a razor, and I could shave the rest. My dad was gone, but I thought he might have an extra razor.

As I was walking upstairs, I passed my parents library where, in addition to books, family photo albums were kept. In an instant, it occurred to me that even more important than cutting off my hair was destroying every picture of myself I could find. I grabbed three albums and took them into the bedroom, along with my school pictures.
I started with the school pictures, not even bothering to remove the individual pictures from the packet. I cut the packet into thin strips, much as though I was doing the job of a shredder. It then occurred to me that my parents owned a shredder. I looked in the attic until I found the shredder. I plugged it in and started pulling out any picture of me from the album. I didn't take any group photos out; maybe I thought I'd be in less trouble if I didn't destroy any pictures of cute Matthew, although I don't think I really cared all that much by then about what kind of trouble I would face. I tore  every picture I could find of me from the  photo album into which it had been placed and fed it to the shredder.

The phone had started to ring shortly after I arrived home, but I ignored it.  Then someone started pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell. I ignored that as well.

Eventually I heard the front door open. I heard my mother calling my name. I fed the photos into the shredder as fast as I could, knowing my time with the shredder was almost finished, and wondering if I should lock myself into the bathroom with my scissors and do the number on my hair before my mom could unlock the bathroom door. It was too late.

My mother opened my door and flipped on the light switch. I had been working essentially in the dark on that late afternoon in early December.  It hadn't even occurred to me to turn on the light as the sun set. I looked at my mother and braced myself for the worst.

"Alexis, sweetie, what's the matter?" she exclaimed. "Why are you doing this?"

I tried to tell her, but I couldn't get any words out except, "Mrs. Moore." She sat on the floor and held me on her lap as I cried. Then she did what she always did when there was a problem, which was to call my dad.

'I know you've paid for two more days of the conference, John," she told him, "but you have to get home now."

My dad said he'd get a flight out of LA that night, and he got home somewhere around midnight. By then my mom had pieced together most of what had been happening with Mrs. Moore all year and in particular what had happened in school that day. "What are we going to do?" my dad asked.

"I don't know, but she's not spending another minute in that witch's classroom," my mom answered.

Exhausted, I fell asleep to the sound of their arguing. My dad carried  me to bed, but the arguing continued, and I heard pieces of it through my sleep.  I heard my mom say, "That stuff has cancer risks. Do you really want her to get cancer?"

"Not really," my dad answered, "but we can't have her constantly standing in front of the mirror crying. She hates her hair. We have to do something about it."

I have no idea how late into the night they argued.  I fell into a fitful sleep with dreams about having cancer and about cutting my own hair off. When I woke in the morning, it was past 9:00, almost an hour after school should have started. I wondered what was happening. I got up to find my father in the kitchen. He asked what I wanted for breakfast. I told him nothing, which was my usual response. He told me that wasn't an option and to try again. I settled on a bagel and orange juice, and I drank the glass of milk I was required to drink each morning. Then he said, "Get dressed. You have a hair appointment."

I wondered what in the world anyone thought they could do to my hair that would make it look better, but didn't ask questions. I showered since I hadn't bathed or showered the night before, put on jeans and a sweatshirt since no one had mentioned school, and got into the car with my dad.
I assumed my mom was at work and my brother was at school as usual, but I didn't ask or mention them.

My dad parked the car, grabbed his laptop, and walked with me into the hair salon. "So what are we doing for this young lady?" a pretty young woman with turquoise hair asked.

I looked at my dad with wide eyes. For all I knew, he was going to tell the lady to shave my head. "We're straightening her hair."

The turquoise-haired lady led me to  chair, put a padded board across the arms so I would be tall enough for her to reach my head, and lifted me onto the chair. She ran her fingers through my hair. "Are you sure?" she asked. "It's so beautiful the way it is."

"Are you sure, Alexis?" my dad asked me.

"Yes!" I both spoke and nodded, not quite believing what was happening.

"OK," the hair dresser conceded. "Let's get started." She lowered the back of the chair to shampoo my hair. "Have you been plucking your hair out, young lady?" she asked in a mock stern tone.

"Yes," I answered truthfully. Hair-plucking was one of my coping mechanisms for the stress of being in Mrs. Moore's class.

"I'll only straighten your hair, " she told me, "if you promise to try really hard not to do that any more."

I gave her my most solemn promise. I can's say that I've never plucked a single hair from my head since, but I've been able to stop myself as soon as I realized I was doing it every time I've done it since then. She essentially cured me  -- she and moving me from Mrs.  Moore's class, but I didn't know about that yet.

I fell asleep in the chair before she was finished, as it's a long process, but I woke up as she was putting finishing touches on the styling job she was doing on my hair. I looked in the mirror and cried. The stylist didn't understand that they were tears of joy.

"I told you it wasn't a good idea," she admonished my dad.

"Do you like it, Alexis?" my dad asked.  I nodded my head up and down as I smiled through my tears. The stylist breathed a sigh of relief.

It was almost time for lunch when we left, so my dad said we should go pick up my mom at work and take her to lunch with us so she could see my hair. As we drove into the parking lot  of the school district office where she worked, she drove in right after us. "Did it take that long?" my dad asked.

"Yes. I  carried his cum photocopies with me." (In her particular position as a school district administrator, she knew that she had the right to copies of every single paper in her child's cumulative folder. "I  got Alexis' copies, too, which is part of the reason for the holdup. Then, " she continued, "they wanted to test him in every subject before they placed him in a class, and they started with third grade level. It's going to take even longer if they try to do that with Alexis on Monday."  It then occurred t me that Matthew and I were changing schools. I can't say I was saddened in the least with the prospect of no longer being under the supervision of Mrs.  Moore.

Then my mom looked for the first time at my hair. "Do you like it?" she asked me.

"Do you like it?" I asked back.

"I do.  I liked it the way it was before, too, but I know it caused you a lot of unhappiness. We just want you to be happy."

"My hair looks like yours now," I told her.

She looked at her own hair in the passenger seat mirror, and commented,  "Yeah, I guess it does."

For several years I had the chemical process repeated every four months or so. now I just have a Chi straightener. I'm able to use it without burning myself, and a bit of moisture in my hair doesn't cause it to geri-curl itself anymore. My hair is also closer to the tow-headed shade it was when I was very young. I started lightening it a couple of  years ago.

I was still far shorter and thinner than anyone else in the class -- hence the dreaded nickname Anorexis --but I felt as though I could deal with that. The hair problem was the straw breaking the camel's back sort of thing for me. One can  look different than her peers in only so many ways without feeling alien or outcaste.

I'm still feel like the water fowl paddling around in the lake, wondering if I'll turn into a swan or if I really am just a slightly funny-looking duckling.  I've learned not to obsess on looks all the time, as there are more important things in life. When I'm in a class, I'm thinking about what the professor is saying, not about whether or not I'll ever be as pretty as the girl sitting behind me. When I'm playing piano or violin, I concentrate on playing well, as opposed to worrying about looking beautiful while I'm playing. 

My grandma always says "Pretty is as pretty does," in her French accent. Hearing "pretty is as pretty does," even from my sweet grandmother,  makes me feel as I did when Mrs. Moore looked directly at me and announced that there was at least one girl in the class who was not pretty, but people would forget about her looks if she would be sweet.

How does a person get past early conditioning? I don't need to think I'm beautiful, or even pretty. I want not to be ugly, and I  want to be able not to think about it at all. How does one achieve that state?






 

Time for Another Favorite Songs List Update

                                     

so close, and yet so far

I find that listing my favorite songs at any given point in time gives me a bit of a permanent record for future reference of where I was mentally and emotionally at that precise moment.  This makes for incredibly boring reading for anyone else, though probably not a whole lot more boring than being treated to a detailed description of my dream of being caught in a smoky house and barely making it to the bathroom on time.

My list will have no set denomination. I'll start at #1 and stop wherever I stop. I may post some videos if it doesn't make the page too cumbersome to load. My taste in music is not typical for my age, so very little  on my list will be from current playlists. My friend Becca has this in common with me. Musically speaking, we were born in the wrong decade or era or whatever.

I will note that I forgot to mention a month ago because I'm not big on birthdays, much less half-birthdays, but one month ago yesterday I became nineteen-and-one-half officially. It sounds better than nineteen by itself, but it's still ridiculously young to be going to med school. It wouldn't be quite so difficult if I actually looked even nineteen. My sole consolation is that I'm not technically the youngest person in my med school class; I was  removed maybe twenty seconds before my brother was during the Caesarean section, so he get the "youngest class member" status. For that matter, who knows? Maybe the class will have an eleven-year-old Taiwanese-American kid. I highly doubt it, but one can hope.

Back to the subject at hand, which is my list of favorite songs, please feel free to comment if you were not bored to unconsciousness by reading this, and especially to share your own lists. 

                 Alexis' Favorite Songs on July 3, 2014

1. All Will Be Well (by Gabe Dixon Band) It's an obscure little song by an equally obscure group. I first came to know it because part  of it was used as a promo for a very short-lived Dick Wolf  series called Conviction. (My parents tightly restricted the total amount of TV I could watch when I was a child, but probably didn't pay as much attention to the content of what was watched as they should have. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, though; I might not have known what the restroom attacker was  up to (barely figured it out as it was) without the  precocious television selections. The song has nothing to do with the series, anyway, except that part of it was used in the commercials. It's a lovely melody with an ethereal piano accompaniment, and it puts into words my feelings about my future in September.

2. Hallelujah (by Leonard Cohen)  It's another of my current favorites, though Leonard Cohen sings it as he sang (I think he has departed) everything else [ may he rest in peace], which was terribly. My favorite rendition is done by Celtic Thunder, though I admit to a prejudice in favor of all things Celtic.

3. We Are Young (as performed by Fun) It was Jared's and my song. I've moved on, and so has he; he has, in fact, moved on from the one he moved on to after me. When it's your first really strong like 
(I won't go so far as to call it love; I don't know whether he would or not) maybe you never 100% get over it. I really don't know. The song's lyrics have little to do with the realities of our former relationship, or maybe they do. He certainly never hit me, but perhaps he would carry me home from a bar if I needed him to do so. Maybe even now he would, except that we're both too young to get into bars without fake IDs, and the most realistic fake ID on the planet wouldn't get me into a bar with my appearance. Jared could pass. he's tall, and tall
people look older than their ages when they're young. Someday I'll post Jared's picture on the blog, but I'm not ready to do that yet, and I'd need his permission, anyway.

4. House at  Pooh Corner or Return to Pooh Corner
[same difference; I'll take either one] (by Kenny Loggins) My daddy used to play and sing this song to me, and in my unbiased opinion, he played and sang it at least as well as Kenny Loggins, which was quite well.  I love  the story Kenny Loggins tells about how he wrote it at home on a day that he ditched school when he was supposed to be studying for finals, and the irony of how the song has since paid for the education of every one of his children.  The song gives me warm fuzzies.

5. Note to the Unknown Soldier (by Five for Fighting) I really like much of Five for Fighting's music and most of their avant garde videos with pianos popping up in the strangest of places, somewhat in spite of John Ondrasik's overuse of falsetto. I understand how you can't always just transpose a song to a lower key because doing so can change the whole feeling of the song, but isn't there someone else in the group (they call themselves "Five for Fighting;" where are the other four when they're needed?) with more range than Ondrasik has? Nevertheless, I find this song most touching, falsetto or not.

                                           



6. Blackbird (by the Beatles) My dad would rip my list to shreds simply because it went all the way to #6 before mentioning a Beatles' song, but tonight I suppose I'm just not quite so much in a Fab 4 sort of mood. Still, this will probably always be my favorite Beatles  song, though it competes with two more I will list. Lennon & McCartney credited their works as having been jointly composed, but who actually composed what is known. This is a McCartney song. I find that I'm slightly more drawn to McCartney's works, though I'm certainly not putting Lennon down as anything less than the genius he was. On another night this song might be higher on my list, because I do find the song to be almost perfectly written.
                         

                                             


7. Desperado (by the Eagles) According to Wikipedia (lame source used by lazy people, I admit; I should at least have gone through the motions of using their bibliography as I did in high school), this song wasn't released as a single, but was listed, albeit pretty far down, in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Times. Written by Frey and Henley, it's been covered by everyone from the Carpenters to Johnny Cash. While I know a few people who like Linda Ronstadt's version, I personally would prefer not to hear the covers. The Eagles' original set too high a standard for comparison.

                                       


8. Landslide (by Fleetwood Mac)    Speaking of covers . . . I cannot stand Stevie Nicks' voice, yet I don't like hearing this song sung by anyone else . . . and I love hearing this song.  It's a paradox, I know. Incidentally, my mother has sung this song. My mom holds doctorates in piano and vocal performance; her training is classical, and she does a decent job with show tunes and anything not too hard  (hard in the sense of indelicate, not difficult; my mom handles the technically difficult stuff just fine) , but this song . . . hearing my mom sing it reminds me of what it would sound like if that lousy novelty singer Mrs. Miller from the 60's attempted "I Can't Get  No Satisfaction." If  Mrs. Miller ever attempted "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," I never heard it, thank God. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about my mom's rendition of this song. If you read this, sorry, Mom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. The Moon's a Harsh Mistress (written by Jimmy Webb) Jimmy Webb composed in the 60's and maybe the 70's, and wrote a lot for Glen Campbell, but composed things that were sung by many others as well.  He was actually a rather talented composer, especially considering that much of what he wrote ended up being crossover-country. He was an insanely good pianist as well. This particular selection is often performed with Webb's original piano accompaniment, which in itself is sufficiently unusual that it in a way puts Webb practically in a category with Mozart.  Linda Ronstadt's version is probably the most well-known, but I'm partial to the song as performed by Lisa Kelly of Celtic Woman, who does marvelous things with a relatively modest if well-trained voice.
                              

 

10. If I Fell (the Beatles) This one was actually, though again credited to both  Lennon and McCartney, written by Lennon. Lennon has described it as his attempted at showing the world he could write a proper ballad. He actually wrote others as well, but this is my favorite of anything he wrote. It hearkens back to a simpler time, has a sweet melody and harmony, and reads as though it could have been written for me personally and where I am in my current relationship about which I'm not ready to talk.

 

 

                                        
11. Hey Jude (by the Beatles)  This one was written and composed by McCartney.  Conspiracy theorists tried to ascribe all sorts of nefarious meaning to it, but McCartney maintains it was merely written as a song of consolation to Jules Lennon, John's son, over his parents' divorce. I personally find the "na na na na na na na" coda to be a bit long, but it's a great song regardless, and the "na na na na na na na" has taken on a life of its own, occasionally used at sporting events and such.

                                     

12.  Summer Highland Falls  (Billy Joel) A non-hit, it's sort of a teen angst anthem with regard to relationships, but also an acknowledgment to the  extreme nature that lives in the hearts and minds of most of the world's truly creative people. Why is it that our artists  so often range from moody at the very least to bipolar or worse? Is it an inherent curse that comes with the gift? The song features a strong melody and a beautiful running piano accompaniment.

Anyone who can perform live in front of a crowd of whatever number of people who show up with only his or her own voice and the instrument with which he or she accompanies himself/herself is both a hero and an icon to me. Here's to the Billy Joels, Elton Johns, Gordon Lightfoots, James Taylors, Paul Simons, Lady Gagas, and the others I have not named who are a dying breed. Keep music in our schools!

                                        

13. American Tune (by Paul Simon, borrowing heavily from J.S. Bach, which is legal; Bach's music is under public domain) Art Garfunkel expressed once that he wished Paul Simon had composed this song while they were still working together because he found it so beautiful. The version I've included is from the Concert in Central Park, where Simon and Garfunkel perform it together. As beautiful as the song is in its original form, it is even more so with their voices blended in Bach's harmonies.

Had I been President Obama, I would have asked Simon or Simon and Garfunkel to perform this song at my first inauguration. It would have been too late at the second inauguration, as some of the lines ( i.e."we come in the age's most uncertain hour") would have come across as somewhat self-incriminating. At his first inauguration, the words could have been attributed to the mess President Obama had inherited from President Bush.

                                                                             
14. April, Come She Will (written by Paul Simon and performed with Art Garfunkel, who typically sings this one solo. I'm sure I've heard a version where the two did the song in harmony, but I haven't been able to find it. I'd say I dreamed it, but I never dream anything so banal; my dreams are about being trapped in smoky attics or held down by attackers while rapists loom. I could only be so fortunate as to dream about Simon and Garfunkel singing in harmony where they hadn't before done so. Garfunkel has described the song as "one of Simon's sweetest poems -- about time."  I heard his say it in a performance, so the punctuation is mine. My assumption is that he meant that it was one of Garfunkel's sweetest poems and that it was about time, and not that it was one of Simon's sweetest poems about time, since, productive as he may have been, I'm not aware that Simon wrote all that many songs or poems specifically about time; such would have made Garfunkel's comment less than effusive  praise.

"April, Come She Will" was featured in the iconic 60's movie (one of the all-time greats in my opinion) The Graduate.  The inclusion of Simon and Garfunkel's movie was a trade-off between producers and director. The producers wanted Anne Bancroft in the role of Mrs. Robinson, while the director wanted an older French actress. The director wanted Simon and Garfunkel's music, but the producers did not. They compromised: Bancroft was cast as Mrs. Robinson, and Simon and Garfunkel provided the soundtrack. For those who have seen the movie, can you even imagine it without the quintessential Simon and Garfunkel recordings?

Paul Simon wrote two original songs specifically for the film, neither of which were used. He described a song he was writing about the times to director Mike Nichols. He mentioned the name "Mrs. Roosevelt" as being in the chorus of the song. Nichols said to change the name to "Mrs. Robinson" and to use it in the score. Other selections were existing Simon and Garfunkel recordings.

My dad used to sing "April, Come She Will" while accompanying himself on his guitar in order to get the ever-sleepless Alexis to conk out. It was nice -- my dad is a talented performer -- but it would be ridiculous to say he sang it as beautifully as Art Garfunkel did.
 

           
15. 100 Years (by Five for Fighting) I can't put every song Five for Fighting has recorded on my list, because then it would just become a list of Five for Fighting's greatest or not-so-greatest hits, and that's not my purpose here. I decided that tonight, this one is the most profound of their  remaining songs. The fact that it was featured on something like an insurance commercial cheapens it a bit for me, but only a little. As a group, they hadn't made that much of a name or that much money for themselves, and surely had bills to pay. So they sold out? I can forgive them. If the rent were due and some commercial enterprise wanted to give me money for a song I had written and performed (fat chance!) would I have sold out? In a heartbeat! The song is still profound. It also has one of their almost-signature videos with pianos, usually grands, in bizarre places.
                           Their videos remind me of when my family was in Florida during Christmas break about three-and-a-half years ago. We went because my mom and my aunt, both Stanford grads, wanted to see Stanford play in the Orange Bowl game. Some idiot rich punk had taken a grand piano belonging to someone in his family and had  used either a family boat or chartered one to take the grand piano out somewhere past Key Biscayne, where he dumped it on a sandbar. The Coast Guard  found the piano and took their time in deciding what to do about it since it wasn't an imminent crisis.  

I wanted in the worst way to rent or charter a boat and to go out to the sandbar to play that piano. I would have been barely sixteen at the time, and that's the sort of thing that sounds like a terrific idea to a sixteen-year-old. I offered to let the cost of the boat charter be my Christmas and birthday presents for the next ten years, or to pay for the boat myself, as I had accrued a decent savings account from playing for school choirs and church masses, not to mention weddings and funerals. My mom explained to me that every time the tide came in, the piano's innards were being power-hosed with salt water, and that if the piano would even play a note, chances are that it would be a wrong note.  Still, I wanted to play it even if it was silent. The idea of sitting or standing (I doubt the punk had thought to bring a bench) on a sandbar playing  the works of Bach, even inaudibly,  on a grand piano was almost more than I could resist. I even hatched a plot to charter a boat myself by forging my dad's signature, which I do really well. 

In an act that was probably what was best for me, before I could enact my scheme, a private citizen took his own boat out to the sandbar, loaded the piano up, brought it to shore, and took it home. I haven't a clue as to what the private citizen planned to do with the most likely irreparable beyond  belief piano, but he didn't get it without a fight. The U.S. Coast Guard ruled in his favor, though, and said that abandoned property in the ocean may be claimed by whomever gets to it first.  The punk's family had actually hired a lawyer on his behalf.  I'm all for permissive parenting to a point, having been on the receiving end of  more than a smidgen of draconian parenting policies in my own childhood and youth,  but the behavior of these  parents was beyond an acceptable degree of enabling. It's the sort of upbringing that gives frat boys the idea that they're entitled to do what they want with any women they want even if they must slip drugs into drinks in order to have their way with the uncooperative wenches.

The saddest part for me was that my Uncle Ralph had been unable to make the trip due to a problem with one of his dairies. Had Uncle Ralph been there, he and I would have chartered  a boat and would have made it out to that sandbar before either of my parents had even given a thought as to what they might have done to prevent us from going. Sometimes it's almost too sad to think of what might have been.

Getting back to "Five for Fighting," John Ondrasik, and music videos with pianos in innovative places, he really needs to shoot a video with a grand piano on a sand bar, ideally somewhere off the coast of south Florida. If he were that worried about the piano, he could use special effects, or even rent the piano from the guy who rescued it from the sandbar since that piano is already totaled, musically speaking,  but I believe the Yamaha  corporation pretty much throws pianos in Ondrasik's direction for use in his videos as long as the Yamaha logo appears prominently. It's all about product placement.

                                                                     


16. Sister Christian
(by Night Rider)  I'm not sure why I like this song. I don't know who Night Rider is/are and if they're one-hit wonders or if they've  salted and peppered the charts with their hits over the years, none of which I've ever heard besides "Sister Christian." In any event, I have decided I like the song, and it's on my list. It may not ever be there again, but right now it's there, fair and square, at # 16.

The video I came across the  randomly, and watched and listened to it.  The song itself features a nice melody beginning with a slightly rustically chorded piano accompaniment -- the sort I like to play. The video reminds me of an alternate ending to those "The Trouble with Angels" movies with Hayley Mills and her friend as Catholic school girl trouble makers. In the actual movie, the Hayley Mills character decides to join the nuns. In this, the unintentional alternate ending to the "Trouble with Angels," Hayley Mills (or a much prettier version of her) escapes the Catholic school. 

I like to imagine myself in the glamorous role of the rebel girl who escapes, but only in my dreams (and I only have demented, psychologically twisted dreams, so it won't even happen in my dreams) could I ever I be so glamorous. My uncle told me that in five years I will be a beauty. My question to him is this: who's planning on paying for all the cosmetic procedures that might remotely make his prediction come true?  (Knotty, I'm sorry for the rather unbecoming self-deprecation, but it's fitting right here, and I'm not planning to slit my wrists or OD on Klonopin because I'm not as beautiful as the girl in the  "Sister Christian" video.  I understand that expecting to look like a movie star or even a Kardashian is an unrealistic expectation. Besides, where the Kardashians are concerned, when would I ever have time to master the art of cropping and photo-shopping all of those selfies?  I have books to read and things to learn. They don't. ) Anyway, give it a watch if you have time.

                                     




This list has grown far too unwieldy, so I must stop. This is my list of favorite songs on this early morning  of July 3, 2014. I worked on it all night, so it should be a masterpiece, though it isn't. I need to read the Rolling Stone's List of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time for my own cultural education before I go off to school in September, because God  knows there will be no time for such frivolity once I meet my first cadaver.

P.S. Sorry for the length.  Sleep was not destined to happen last night.




 

Dream Weaver, I Hate Your Guts

It was a dream night again last night. Why can I never have nice or even normal dreams?

This one featured another of my weird French-Canadian aunts  -- the one who left me in her house with a concoction burning in the oven that smoked the whole place beyond belief.  At the time I had very limited mobility due to  miscellaneous broken bones and overall weakness due to kidney and intestinal infections.  I found my way out and eventually got help, but the entire ordeal is one I don't care to think abut during my conscious moments, much less in my dreams.

Anyway, the dream was triggered, I would assume, by a bonfire of some sort -- probably illegal and probably the work of some frat --  though I really don't know that. All I do know is that the wind carried the smoke in the direction of my house, and our upstairs windows were open. The smell of smoke was enough to trigger another fire dream for me.

This one started with the wicked aunt in my doorway, sounding almost like a witch.  '"ALAYsis," she cackled (my dad and his siblings were all raised in the U.S., and none have  actual accents, but for some reason the Utah/Nevada aunts all pronounce my name incorrectly), "You can try, but  you'll never make it out alive!" Then she disappeared and I knew it was my chance to get away. I thought I was in the unfinished attic of her house, so I pulled the comforter off my bed to scoot atop it along the splintery floors.  This was bizarre, but I could feel the pain in my arm and collarbone, and especially in my leg, as though the bones were broken all over again. I scooted along the bedroom floor to the door, opened it with my "good" arm,, and scooted across the landing/sitting area. I somehow ended up under the grand piano that my mother put there, and my comforter got caught on one of the legs of the piano. I tugged as hard as I could with my "good" arm, forgetting that both of my arms are actually good now, but it wouldn't budge, so I had to scoot along without it. I finally made my way under the piano after getting caught up in the bench. Then I made it to the staircase when my recent  bout with colitis decided to manifest itself, and I knew I had to get to a bathroom sooner than soon.

Along came my brother, walking up the stairs, in a rare attempt not to awaken everyone in the house, as I was scooting down one step at a time on my bottom. He tripped over me but caught the bannister. "Alexis, what in the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

"I don't know," I answered,  "but I have to go to the bathroom. Now!"

Recognizing a crisis of sorts, Matthew helped me to my feet with one hand, took one giant step up three stairs,  flicked a light switch with his other hand, and practically threw me in the direction of the bathroom. I made it.

The commotion presumably woke my parents, who [according to Matthew] stumbled in various states of undress (you don't want to know) from their bedroom to see what was going on in the rest of the house. Matthew must have figured out it was another nightmare, because by the time I was out of the bathroom, my dad had his guitar tuned and my mom had 7-Up for me to drink, and both were dressed respectably at least for their kids to see in the middle of the night (scrubs for my dad and a nightshirt for my mom).  I eventually got maybe another twenty minutes of sleep, but the night was over for all intents and purposes as far as I was concerned.

I know the aunt in question doesn't even know where we live, has no key to our house,  has no alarm code, and probably doesn't even have enough discretionary income to pay for the gas it would take to get her here from northern Nevada, but still she haunts me in my dreams.  I wish she would move to Siberia or Antarctica.