girlfiend

Just a few days late on the Friday Five.

1. What did you want to be when you grew up and why?

For years I wanted nothing more than to be a dog walker. Odd, as I now cohabitate with three cats.

2. Who was your favorite person to do things with (excluding your parents)?

My best friend Jonathan. We met on the playground in kindergarten. I was climbing the ladder to the treehouse when something rubbed against my leg and purred. That something was a small boy who quickly became my pet cat, Meow Meow.

A couple of months ago at his wedding, Jon’s aunt told me a story I hadn’t heard. That day on the playground Jon asked for my phone number. When he arrived home he had only six digits. Undeterred, he tried every combination until he found me. Jon was more fun than anyone I knew.

3. Did you love school or did you hate it? Why? Did that change as you got older?

I loved it. I was good at it. I excelled. Then I hit fourth grade. I still excelled academically, but my outsider status as a Jewish girl at a Christian school really set in when my grade made the move from the lower school to the upper school. All of a sudden I was harassed for being fat, Jewish and female. It got even worse when my “fat” transformed into hips and boobs when I was in fifth grade. Not only did I have to endure the torture of the boys chanting, “Thump, thump, thump” as though I was an elephant trudging through the halls, I had to live with the bra snapping and whispers. I guess since I had to wear a bra I was a slut too. By the time I hit sixth grade I learned that not only had I aborted a child, I was the tuna fish girl. It was all downhill from there.

4. Was your family close? What were your favorite family traditions?

If you consider three people spending their evenings in three separate rooms of the same house, then yes, we were very close. I believe that self-medicating with half a xanax before family functions is the closest we got to tradition.

5. Did you think that being an adult would be cool?

Who knows. I was way, way, way too old for my age. When I was 9 I was fired from a babysitting job when the family learned I was not 13. I don’t know that I wanted to be an adult. I think I just wanted independence.