my life, chapter one

the first half of my life, chapter one
in 450 words or less....



I always thought of myself as a shy child. However, in the 5th grade Bunny Osteen was my English teacher and I was completely in love with her. She had big 1980’s hair and wore silk blazers with big should pads and lots of gold bangle jewelry. She was what I thought money looked like, and she drove a Mercedes 450 SL convertible with red leather. Yes, to me she was high society in Nashville. One day we read a play in class and she asked me to read the lead. Oddly, I can’t remember the play but she told me I was good and that was enough for me… I was an actor destined for greatness.

By the 7th grade I was drunk with power. Mrs. Osteen asked me to write for the school newspaper, all 2 pages of it. I did a piece on whatever I was assigned but I also got my own column titled “Horor-scopes.” I advised Leo students to stay in bed or risk being chased down by an angry gym instructor only to meet your maker by a runaway piano. I am famous.

The 8th grade took me down lower than Robert Downey, Jr or La’ Lohan. We moved and I left the somewhat inner-city school (well inner city to Nashville) and we high tailed it out to set up house in the country. I was not popular. I was fat. Then I had the single worst medical woe you can imagine as a preteen: hemorrhoids. I became the boy on the doughnut. Of course eating my feelings became my new past time, which only made the hemorrhoids worse. It was me, my doughnut pillow and Snicker’s bars for a long year.

High School was a welcome relief. I tested in the Academic Magnet school. This is the smart school for nerds if you aren’t familiar with the terms. Of course, testing from that back-ass-wards country school was no major accomplishment. At the nerd school no one was cool and I was thriving. I ran for office with candy. I dressed as a middle-aged woman for pep rally and wore pasties on the outside of my oxford shirts. I learn the most valuable lesson: it’s far better to be laughed at… if it’s your laugh.

College came entirely too fast at the height of my reign in nerd Ville. I was working and I knew the job had promise. And I was in love. Then I was rejected. So, I fell in love with money because if you drove the right car everyone was interested.

I hated college and made it routine to rotate the sign-in sheet with a friend. She and I were both working in ad sales and thought this degree thing nothing more than a formality. Ah the salad days… or as it shall be called - chapter 1.

--stay tuned for chapter2---