Dancing Brave

Getting Smashed

I don't completely remember the first time I got drunk. And not because of a blackout or anything -- mostly, it just didn't occur to me to make a lasting mental note, and therefore, I'm not sure which time was my first.

Here's what's definite: I was 15. That's how old I was when we moved to Calgary, and with an 18 drinking age, it's even easier for high-schoolers to get their hands on booze. The rest is all a guess. I was probably at a party at my friend Jon's house, and almost certainly drinking bottles of Molson Special Dry. It's possible my friend Leigh and I were sharing a six of green Bacardi Breezers, or a pack of bottled Long Island Iced Tea. But I'm pretty sure my first party in Canada was an MSD-fueled one. It was my beer when I was 15 (later replaced by Labatt Blue and the occasional can of Kokanee, which regrettably you can't get here). The first time I drank it, my friend Ian bought the six-pack and rationed me three, since I'd never gotten through even one before. When I cracked open my third bottle, I ran up to Ian and shouted, "I AM DRINKING MY THIRD BEER!" He was very proud of me.

I was very proud of me. It felt like a great coming-of-age thing. I had never been to an actual high-school bash with actual drinking. I'd never before needed to know whether a mickey of rum would be enough to split with Leigh, or if we'd need a larger bottle. I had definitely never needed to call poison control because my friend took a sip of floor cleaner ("It smelled like orange juice!" she slurred) before we realized what she was doing. I'd never funneled beer or done shots of tequila or yakked in a rain barrel at my PE teacher's house in the country because his daughter was throwing an outdoor kegger and I had just guzzled something called "lemon gin" that I believe was just powdered lemonade mixed into straight gin. I'd never slept in my friend's minivan after an all-nighter in a giant open field that belonged to one friend or another who lived on a farm. I'd never thrown a beer bottle onto the ground in a fury because I overheard people who were supposed to be my friends talking shit about me, because I had the gall to be upset that being the last to turn 18 meant all my supposed best pals stopped making plans that legally included me, and only under duress starting throwing me thoughtless bones: "Oh, between bars, we're going to stop off at a party at Joel's friend's house for like 15 minutes, if you want to meet us there for a bit." I had never had to stop my friend from climbing into my clothes dryer, or cover the Bar Billiards table with a tarp so we could do shots off it without ruining the felt, or learn how to gauge my gag reflex so I could make it to a toilet safely (my record is almost perfect on this, except for when I followed up the rain barrel by puking in my hand outside my gym teacher's bathroom, some of which spilled onto the floor. Fortunately, I cleaned it up).

I learned, or did, all that stuff and more when I was in high school. And I loved it. The first year I was in Calgary it was really hard for me to shake off the shackles of my own paralyzing shyness. I still tend to fall quiet when I'm nervous, or when I feel pressure to be witty and charming. But that first year, I felt a lot like I was tagging along to people, without a proper group of my own. Being at parties was the only common bond I had with anybody. It's the great equalizer. Get stuck in a lab with a cute guy who intimidates you, and saying, "Wow, I/you/your girlfriend got so trashed last weekend at Mickey's party" opens up all kinds of lines of conversation. It made me feel like I had friends. Which eventually, I did.

I never really think much about how much, or why, I drank back then. Certainly, I've always been someone who appreciates the punitive nature of the spins, because they tell me to stop. I've never had the kind of blackout where I woke up somewhere strange and had no idea how I got there, and if I've ever forgotten things from a night out, they were usually only short conversations I had amid a louder, more aimless social whirl. I'm lucky in that regard. Lucky that I'm a stickler for rules, and being so drunk I couldn't get to wherever I was supposed to sleep that night would have been a huge violation of that. Oh, sure, I got just drunk enough that I once thought it was a good idea while taking a shortcut to another bar to follow my friends -- all climbers -- over a fence topped with barbed wire, which ripped my jeans (and mercifully, somehow, not my skin) from knee to mid-thigh... and then, I thought it was a good idea to do it again several yards later, at which point I almost made it over but ripped the back and swung from there while my friend J.J. laughingly caught me and unhooked me. I still wonder how I came out of that without bleeding.

But, of course, a lot of what prompted me to reflect on those times was reading Smashed. Not because it was such a life-changing read or anything, but because it's the kind of book that's impossible to read without aligning the author's experiences and emotions with your own. It's not deliberate, or rooted in any desire to find a moral to her story that teaches you something about yourself. It's just the familiarity of some of what she says that prompts a comparison to your own life. Like, "Did I ever do that?" or "Did I ever feel that?" or "Could that have been me?" She talks about how she was seduced into it because it loosened her tongue, relaxed her, made her feel popular, made her feel fun. Those are hit close to the vest for me. And it becomes a totally selfish reading experience, because it all turns into, "There but for the grace of God go I."

She knew every detail of her first rendezvous with alcohol. She admits that she took care of and fetishized that memory more than of most her other firsts. So of course, that's when I reached my mind back to try and dig up mine, to see if I had it there in any kind of comparable detail. I don't. Which is good, I guess. But the book ultimately left me with an unsatisfied feeling, not necessarily because of the story or the writing, but because reading it made me a person who determines how messed up she is, or was, based on somebody else's problems. There's something so unsavory about saying to yourself, "Well, thank God, at least I wasn't as bad as she was."

I suppose we all have to look for parameters -- retroactively or in the present -- wherever we can find them, but it sucks to catch yourself doing it at someone else's expense.

Endings/Beginnings

My friend Michael is leaving town on Saturday night. He's moving to Hawaii. He's talked about moving almost since he came to LA, but it was always east he was planning to head -- back toward family, back toward the familiar. Then, suddenly, he watched his heart move west and he had no option but to go after it, and after her.

It's bittersweet for me to see him go. Michael was my first roommate out here, the best friend from high school of one of my best college buds; we'd coincidentally planned to move out here the same day, and so we decided to live together and brave the city together, stronger that way than going it alone. I think we found a comforting touch of home, of something familiar and safe, in one another. He was my, "I can do this." We painted our kitchen red the first night, before our furniture even arrived. We slept on the floor. We celebrated our weekiversary -- or was it a month? -- by going out and getting hammered, then coming home, drinking wine from a giant jug, and watching a horrible porn because it was called They Came From Planet Butt, and we couldn't resist. We had to know. (Spoiler: Apparently, people from Planet Butt glow green. Very fungal.) It ended with the TV falling off his dresser onto my leg. I was so drunk that it happened in slow motion. I was totally fine, and now, when I look back, I wish I could remember how and why the TV tipped, and why it felt so light, and why my shin didn't crack. That's what cheap wine does, I guess. It was the first of many boozy nights that would end with me crawling into bed, dizzy, and him bursting in two seconds later, flopping down on the other side, and starting a slurry conversation about everything and nothing at all while we both began drifting away.

He was so many laughs, so many fun nights. Such a comfort. I really can't imagine having done this without him. We'd both thrown caution to the wind and chased a dream, or a vague shadow of one, and it was scary and uncertain and rife with ups and downs and doubts, but we gave each other an anchor.

We only roomed together for about six months; his girlfriend moved in, I moved out. Then she moved out. There were bouts of self-doubt and a lot of the usual soul-churning questions about What It All Meant, and whether he'd ever be a starry romantic again, and then suddenly, right when he'd given up, he found it. Another dream to chase. I know he's not moving just for a girl -- he's had wanderlust for a while, never fully able to commit to LA as his true home; it was always just a place where he lived -- but he's moving where he's moving because that's where she is, and right now, that's where he needs to be.

We realized the other night just how much had happened in five years -- I got married, he got serious, we both moved up in our fields, and we're both realizing we need something more, something else, to fill our lives. So we're trying again, me here and him there. And I'm proud of him for that, because it's a big leap, and it's not one he ever expected he'd want to take. But when he got to that figurative crossroads, he realized that nothing was going to change unless he seized it and made it change, and for the first time he decided to turn rather than plow straight ahead unaffected. That takes guts.

We didn't see each other that often as the years went by, stupidly daunted by geography (the Valley is far, y'all) and busy in that superficial way people get, where they don't realize how easy it would have been to see each other more until it's too late to act on it. But the best thing about him is that hanging out after an absence is just like hanging out after a day apart, and so I know it'll be that way when we drop by Honolulu or he jets back here for some SoCal sun.

I really will miss him. But I'm glad he's going. It's brave and it's bold and it's exactly what he needed to do. How often do you get to hit that trifecta?

Good luck, Michael. See you soon.

My Little Pony

In my youth, I only ever owned one Barbie doll. Peaches and Cream Barbie, to be precise; when I realized I'd be getting one, I knew it would be my first and last, so I wanted one with a pretty dress. Her billowing skirt and matching stole fit the bill.

My mother wasn't, and hasn't ever been, wild about Barbie. If I had pressed her harder she probably would have caved, but as it was, I accepted that putting Barbie on my birthday list was just for show. It's not that she was a tyrant; just that, given the choice between buying me a Barbie and just about anything else, Mom would cheerfully go for door number two, and thank me for giving her so many options.

Honestly, I never minded. In the end I just wanted one to say I had one; I have never been thrilled with dolls and found that Barbie was not that different. She ended up serving one major purpose that was far more important than any in her own Mattel-designed world: She was an overlord of the My Little Pony pasture that my bedroom floor became.

I loved My Little Pony. Who knows why, although I'm sure part of it stems from a general predisposition of mine to adore horses, despite being born with allergies and a lack of sporting ability that made any significant pursuit of this hobby impossible. In grade one, I checked out A Very Young Rider -- a photo-based book about a little girl who owned a horse and would ride it competitively -- every week from the library at school, until my librarian gently suggested I try something else one week. I went with A Very Young Dancer, or somesuch, as a cursory gesture until I could get my old favorite back. The best summers were when we visited my aunt, who ran a horse farm in Iowa, and she would let me ride Cupcake -- the pony gentle enough for a very weak rider such as I.

So it's natural that My Little Pony would have been my favorite toy, and I loved them with a single-minded obsession. It all came flooding back today when Gael linked to an article about a My Little Pony appreciation convention for collectors.

The part where the author names the first six ponies brought a tide of memories in, mostly because I can name for you the order in which I bought them. First was Cotton Candy, then Misty, then Blossom, all of them in the early design with thicker hooves that had flat bottoms. Then I picked up Butterscotch and Blue Bell, which had the streamlined feet that had domed undersides rather than those unsightly cankles that poor 1.0 Cotton Candy, Minty, and Blossom had. (They got updated versions made, but I didn't upgrade -- I loved my relics.)

I can't remember exactly when I got Cotton Candy -- was it in Houston, or was it just after we moved to England? But I do vividly remember Minty coming into the picture. I was five, and we were living in End House, a rental off London's Kensington High Street. It was the summer of 1983, and we had just relocated, and would live in crusty End House until August; my parents were dealing with the bad news that our shipment got water-damaged on the way over to the UK, and that included a lot of our toys. My Belle stuffed animal was a moldy, mildewed mess, so my father -- amazingly shrugging off worries about far more expensive stuff that was ruined, which is something I failed to appreciate at that age -- immediately dropped everything and walked his weeping daughter to the nearest toy store on the High Street and bought me a replacement. Minty followed soon after, and I was happy as a clam again.

I remember the Hazels, some French friends my dad knew, bringing their daughter over to play with me that summer. They were the first French people I had ever seen. Mr. Hazel was tall, bespectacled, and wore goofy red shorts. His daughter didn't speak English and so she kept referring to Cotton Candy as "Candy," and wouldn't change that no matter how often I corrected her. At the time I didn't grasp that it just didn't matter to her, and that it should have been fine for her to say whatever she weanted. No, I wanted her to pay Cotton Candy some full respect. She bugged.

In what I assume is a hideous oversight, I never owned Snuzzle. She was the mystery pony I skipped over in favor of the first one to come with its own set piece: Peaches, who arrived inside the Grooming Parlour. I could hang things in there, and it opened out to show a runway-like plastic piece on which the pony would stand and face a faux-mirror that was really just mirror-shaped, and adorned with one of those faintly reflective stickers. You could put a little card with the name of the first seven ponies in a slot at the end of the runway, denoting whose turn it was to stand up there and primp or be primped.

Next was Lemon Drop and her show stable, which came with all the things one would need in order to pretend one was an important pony with a record of winning ribbons. But I never went back for Snuzzle, because after that came the deluge of specialty ponies who had cocked heads or freckles or interesting gaits, and curly hair, and wings and horns or rainbow manes. I had the first-ever baby ponies, which I ordered through the mail and whose heads popped off their bodies with such ease that I would often interchange them. Gumdrop and Lollipop, they were called. The Dream Castle came next, followed by the Lullaby Nursery. I also had the sea ponies, Cascade and her waterfall, and a giant stuffed Windy -- a lavender unicorn with multicolored hair.

Each pony had a personality of its own. Minty was always sort of an aging sage; Peaches was vain and stupid but with -- wait for it -- a heart of gold; Hopscotch was spunky and perfect and the envy of everyone; Lickety Split, with her curly mane, was a beautiful snob; Masquerade with her jewel-eyes was a witch; Confetti, who came with a bridal gown (!), was always a lost princess trying to find her way back to the castle.

Bow Tie was always up to no good, until she fell prey to my need to create couples. God hadn't made boy ponies yet, so I took matters into my own hands and designated certain ones as male so that I could match them up into supercouples and love triangles. Bow Tie was the first to cross the gender line; a Mohawk-style haircut provided by Julie aided this immensely, although he ended up being the only one whose hair ever got the chop.

I also made most of the unicorns male (Glory was a jerk, Sunbeam a gigolo, and Moondance the hero; the Pegasus ponies were also guys). For some reason, this always stuck; looking back I'm sure part of that was because unicorns and their phallic headgear made natural choices, but indeed, no matter which pony I decided was a boy, it always became impossible for me to change my mind. I couldn't switch them back without feeling a bit conflicted. But my pony pasture was thick with drama from that day on: There were fights, jealousies, brainwashings, gay amour, kidnappings, love potions, catfights, and music montages. Yes, music montages. (I'm certain the tortured love in Les Miserables, the soundtrack to which was always one of my favorite cassettes, contributed greatly to the amount of emotional angst through which I forced my ponies to suffer.)

Strange how much of this little world I created has stuck in my memory. And how zealously I guarded its privacy; in fact, I remember a time when Julie generously offered to play with me, and I didn't let her, and it devolved into a fight -- all because I was too embarrassed to let her into the playroom to show her that I had paired off all my ponies and that they were sleeping for the night with their heads interlocked. As if she'd have batted an eyelash, but at the time, I was young enough to think I was being racy.

More and more keeps flooding back to me. I remember the birthday that a treasure hunt around the house led me to my room, where the nursery had been set up on my little brown table and chairs. I remember coveting particular ponies I didn't have -- Skydancer the Pegasus, Parasol, Incognito. (Although come to think of it, I might've had Incognito in the end. The more pictures I look at, the more I realize I owned so many more than I can recall clearly.)

And I remember a toy store in Camberley -- indeed, Camberley Toys -- that always became synonymous with the hope of obtaining another pony; going to Camberley always represented a chance to drag Mom into the store and wheedle and plead for another plastic friend. It didn't always work. In fact, I'm not sure it ever worked, except for the day Tex the Clydesdale arrived sporting a cowboy hat and a bandanna. Even Mom agreed I had to have him. We were from Houston; it seemed meant to be.

It's weird to think that something so integral to my childhood is all packed away in a box somewhere, their hair probably standing on end, or tangled into weird geometric configurations from years of lying in the same position. I don't even know if they'll be worth salvaging for a daughter I might have someday, but I can understand why my mother hasn't thrown them away. Even without laying eyes on them for so many years, and even knowing that they're probably in deteriorating condition, I can't imagine junking my favorite childhood fantasy world.

I had always wondered why My Little Pony seemed to die out, but maybe it grew too fast and became too immense to continue. It needed a break. Ponies with new paintings and features and tricks were being churned out by the ton, so it's almost like the world hit a saturation point. I don't remember when I first realized I had to put them away and couldn't go back, but I can still feel the pang that came with that moment. You invest all that time and creativity into one thing, one world, and then one day you realize that it was always something you were destined to leave behind.

So in a way, it was sweet to read the article, because as much as it's easy to laugh at people who color-coordinate with a pony or wear its name on a tag, or bring old ones to a convention and teach people how to re-hair them -- and, sadly for my soul, it is kind of easy -- there's also something touching about a group of poeple that doesn't feel the need to throw out years of loving something. As much as my first reaction was, "Oh, how mildly insane," I like that there are people paying homage to all that time and love they spent on My Little Pony as young kids. It kind of makes that feel like less of a hopeless waste, and it's certainly given me a pleasant afternoon stroll down the recesses of my own memory.

But I'm not making Kevin take the pony test. That's taking it a bit far.

Rain

Los Angeles is in the dunk tank today. El Niño hit the target with a softball, and we all dropped and got drenched.

It's brilliant. Every passing car, with its waving windshield wipers, makes a musical splashing sound that crescendos with a hiss and fades away in a symphony of spitting droplets. The glow from street lights bounces off the pavement, casting the city in a golden haze.

Rain makes me want to stay in bed. Preferably with somebody. During really dreary downpours, Doug and I often ditched class in favor of staying under the cover of his covers; it was luxuriously isolationist -- just us and the sound of the rain. Those are cozy memories. Even when I'm alone, though, my favorite lazy days are wet weekends when the sky is dark all day and rain slams against every surface, and I stay in flannel pajamas and drink hot tea and read a thick book.

I've always been drawn to the rain. During nighttime thunderstorms in college, I'd join my friends' smoke breaks on the swinging bench in front of Lewis Hall, and we'd curl up next to each other under the porch roof's protection -- four or five girls in pig-tails wrapped in wool-coat balls, big furry slippers peeking out -- smelling the ozone, shivering delightedly in the storm's chilly draft, watching lightning cut electric swaths through inky skies.

The campus of my high school in Miami was mostly outdoors. On rainy days during lunch or free periods, my best friend Heather and I would take off our shoes and socks and embark upon leisurely walks through the deluge, soaking ourselves to the skin. We'd jump in puddles and laugh ourselves silly while the rest of the grade nines huddled under the covered patio and tsk-tsked their disdain. We didn't care. We danced and sang under our breaths and gossiped and didn't give a whit what they said or thought. Then the bell would ring and we'd scurry to class, dripping wet and happy.

It's one of my only good memories of Miami: Wet days where somehow, it all went away. I stopped caring. I stopped crying. I stopped trying. I just let myself be, and it was deliciously freeing to close my eyes and let the rain clean off the filth of my insecurities.

And that's one of the only things I wish I could get back from my Miami years: The simple ability to forget. To shed my skin. To dance, brave, and wash away with the rain.