Punkin

When I was a little girl, I had but a single ambition in life: I wanted to be a Mommy. I guess I thought my Mum was so cool, I wanted to be like her? Regardless of what my motivation was, I only wanted to be a Mommy. I was gently informed that Mommies need to have jobs too. My parents were separated at the time, and my Mum was struggling to make ends meet as a single parent. So in her reality, Mommies needed to work, and she wanted to make sure I grew up with the work ethic needed to support a family on my own if I had to. So while I might have changed my desire to reflect whichever whim was current, I still wanted to me a Mommy. An Astronaut-Mommy, a Paleontologist-Mommy, a Doctor-Mommy...

When Beaker and I started dating, we knew a couple who were desperately trying to conceive. I was elated when they finally got pregnant, and just a little jealous. They were so deserving and it had been such a struggle. My biological clock certainly became louder. Then another couple we knew were expecting. And the envy I felt was mingled with a sadness that Beaker and I were being left behind on this voyage into parenting being made by our closest peers.

Finally, Beaker and I were married and settled. As a dried up old lady, I was starting to worry about my eggs being shriveled and useless. Shortly after we were married, I had a miscarriage. I hadn't even known I was pregnant. The experience seemed to emphasize that it was going to be hard for me to get pregnant, and stay pregnant. Beaker and I had a long talk. Assuming a long road to pregnancy, we decided it was time to start attempting to begin our family. I went off birth control in late March/early April of 2006.

I never had a single 'not on birth control' period.

I started feeling weird at work one night. Normally, on night shifts, I have a 'meal' at about 11pm and then nothing for the rest of the night. But for 2 night shifts in a row, I was famished. I was munching on potato chips (which I'm honestly not wild about) and commented on the strange phenomenon to one of my co-workers. She teasingly asked if I was pregnant. Aghast, I said I wasn't.

The following week, I was still feeling weird, so I decided to try a pregnancy test. We were sitting down on the couch after a long week, and Beaker offered me a strawberry Bacardi Breezer (a rum cooler). I accepted, and put the bottle to my lips, and as the tiniest sip touched my tongue, I thought I'd better just double check and take the pregnancy test before I put alcohol into my system.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Beaker bellowed as I poured the cooler down the sink.

"The stick was blue."

"What?"

"The. Stick? Was. Blue."

"Pregnant blue?"

"No, smurf blue. Yes, pregnant blue. You can't be 'a little bit pregnant', Beaker."



I had a horrifying pregnancy that ended in an induction at what we thought was 37.5 weeks. My Mum, a neonatal specialist nurse, took one look at wee Punkin and shook her head. 36 weeks, tops. But I'd finally fulfilled my one life-long goal, and no matter how sick I'd been, I was a Mommy.

Certifiably Boy Crazy

How's about a little introduction?

For the purposes of this blog, my name is Ella Brown. Other than the names of people, I'm telling you pretty much the truth of my life. I may also avoid mentioning the name of the town I currently live in, just because. It's small. I grew up here. And a lot of those boys still live here.

I'm 32 and I've been married for just shy of 2 years. My husband and I have been together for 5 years and 4 days. It's easy to remember, as we got together on my birthday. I have a Bachelors in English Lit, and I am a practicing nurse. Uh, except, I'm on maternity leave right now. For the Americans in the crowd, in Canada you can have 12 months for mat leave. My heart breaks for my American girlfriends who only get 3 months.

I'd qualify my greatest accomplishments in this order:

#1) Punkin, my 8 month old daughter
#2) My happy marriage
#3) My Bachelor's
#4) My nursing cert.

My husband is an Electrician. The guys at work call him Beaker. Yeah, after this guy:


You see, Beaker was 3 years into a Chemistry major/Biochem minor when he decided he really didn't want to spend the rest of his life in a lab. Rather than finish, he quit school. Yes, I nag him to finish his degree for the sense of accomplishment. No, he hasn't yet. So now he's an industrial construction electrician's apprentice. Say that 10 times fast. Anyhow, they call him Beaker because even though he didn't finish his degree he's still an enormous science nerd. I can call him that because I am also a nerd. Just not a science nerd. *shudder*

Beaker works away these days, and rather than mope while Punkin naps, I've decided to dust off my writing chops. Technically, I'm a published writer. However, as you can't pop over to amazon and buy my Great Canadian Novel, I don't count it. And I've been lacking inspiration lately - seriously? The last idea I had that was even remotely close to workable was about Canadian politics. Yeahhhhh, maybe not so much. Maybe my big writing success will be the ability to purge some of the drama from my unmarried life.

I'm going to start writing a little more about my regular life, as memorable things occur, but I think there's a lot of fuel for the furnace in my boy-crazy past. For the record, I think most of the boy interactions are ridiculously funny, and also a very accurate representation of what it is like to grow up in my town.

What else can I tell you? I'm a hot fattie. Or a fat hottie. Whichever way you want to see it, not only am I the genetic evidence that a predisposition to fatness can be inherited, I'm also a smokin' hot yummy Mommy. I'm also on a diet because I want more babies. I'm completely addicted to Diet Coke, my digital camera and the 80's station on my Sirius. I collect 50's and 60's barware. I have keratosis pilaris and keratosis follicularis, greenish eyes, and reddish hair.

I guess that's really it, for now.


p.s. For those of you keeping score. I used to be a super-active, temple-worthy, Molly Mormon. I am not anymore. The angst I have about faith vs community consume me enough on a daily basis that I will endeavour to not bore you to tears. Suffice it to say, I'm not entirely evil. To borrow from Mike Myers, I am 'the Diet Coke of Evil'

Life Lessons

• When you are 32, you can no longer party like you are 22.
• The baby doesn't care if you tied one on.

Why my worst birthday lasted a year.

I was 21, and therefore thought I must know everything about the world around me in general, and relationships and romance specifically. I'd met this boy, Brian, on the internet a few months earlier, and we'd randomly flirt, but nothing that really meant anything because it was the internet (this was long before all the different internet dating sites), and I was in a pretty serious relationship with someone on the other side of the country. Online Brian was funny, sweet, romantic and enjoyable to talk to. As a result, we spent hours talking to one another when I should have been studying.

As luck would have it, we lived a 20 minute bus ride apart. And yet we enjoyed our online interaction so much, neither of us really wanted to meet. I was hesitant to meet him due to a natural reticence that came from wondering if he would still want to be friendly when he found out my ass was big. He was hesitant because he was starting to really like me, and knew I already had a boyfriend. So we bumbled a long some more.

Over the Remembrance Day long weekend, I took the bus home to visit my parents. On the way back to Vancouver, the Greyhound I was in rolled. I was pretty beat up, and emotionally I kinda went off for a while. I became super passive aggresive with my boyfriend, and eventually just stopped taking his phone calls. I'd get my roommate to tell him I wasn't around. I finally packaged up everything he'd ever given me and mailed it back to him, including a promise/engagement ring. I was supremely messed up.

A few days later, my roommate started actively mocking me about spending hours chatting online with Brian and not actually ever going to meet. I finally broached the subject with Brian and it was the opening he'd been looking for. He wanted to take me to lunch. As luck would have it, I was working for the next week, so he took the bus to the mall I worked at, and took me to McDonalds. We had a short visit while I had my break and then he went home. He spent over 2 hours on the bus to visit with me for 30 minutes.

Somehow, that meeting started something, and the next thing I knew, Brian and I were dating. The school year had come to an end, and my roommate was moving on, and I didn't want to go back home because it would mean Brian and I wouldn't be spending anymore time together. So Brian asked me to move in.

From the instant I moved my belongings into his house, he took the upper hand in our relationship. He demanded a portion of our paycheque to cover the bills, and I agreed to allow him to control that aspect of our lives. Then he demanded a portion of my paycheque to cover groceries. I still didn't have a problem with his behaviour - until I went to make a lunch to take to work on his 'budget saver' plan, and there was nothing for me to put into the sandwich. When I asked him how come there wasn't enough lunch meat for my lunch, he lost it. As emotionally screwed up as I was, I suddenly decided I wasn't going to take being bullied by him over sandwich meat, and fought back.

It began an ugly cycle of near daily screaming matches, which were often only interrupted by one of us going to work, or by really intense make up sessions. A few days before my birthday, I asked what we were going to do for it. Brian promised there would be something awesome for my birthday, and that it would be worth having to go to work because coming home would be so excellent.

When I came home, Brian was wrapped up in a computer game, and there was a pot of Kraft Dinner on the stove. I completely lost my temper and ripped into him about Kraft Dinner not being acceptable as a birthday dinner. The fight was so long and so intense that even though I didn't want to admit it, I knew it was the beginning of the end. I even asked him if there was any point in trying to make our relationship work, and stomped out in a snit. About 10 minutes later he came outside, crying, and apologized. He wanted everything to work out, he was so sorry, he had a birthday present for me inside. Stupidly, I accepted his apology.

Three weeks later, we had another blow out. In the heat of the moment, he screamed that he didn't think he loved me anymore. He made a big stink about me being completely ungrateful for the wonderful birthday he gave me and how he really wasn't sure he was ready to commit long-term to someone like me. When I finally straightened out my spine, and went on the attack, he lost control and knocked me across the room.

All the love I thought I had for him disappeared in the instant that he hit me. I picked myself up on the floor, went to the front hallway where we had a stash of boxes left over from when I moved in and started packing without saying a word. I rearranged the living room into a bedroom for 'in the meantime', and two days later, I moved out.

A few weeks later, I realized I was still missing some things, and called him. He was overjoyed to hear from me. I went over to pick up the box of stuff he's put together for me and there was a romantic dinner waiting for me. Uncomfortable, and on the verge of being late for a date with Ben (my first date with Ben, actually), I backed out of the apartment and drove away as fast as I could. He phoned later that night, lamenting the break-up. He was trying to turn it around, and said he was surprised I hadn't called to get back together yet. I reminded him that he'd hit me, and said hateful things about me and may have even cheated on me (which was something I'd suspected, but had been unable to prove).

It turns out, he was having a really hard time getting over the end of the relationship. It was kind of unbelievable to me. But 5 years later, he called, on my birthday. He wanted to take me out for dinner. I had just broken free from the chaotic mess that was my relationship with Ben, and thought there would be no harm in seeing Brian again. As it turns out, it was pretty harmless. Brian still loved me, and still wanted me back. I still didn't love him, and still didn't want him back. There was a nice closure that happened because of the dinner date, for me. Brian still gets in touch with me on a regular basis, but draws the line at CrackBook, where he has stalwartly refused to 'friend' me, for fear of 'falling back into the abyss of his love for me'.





And why am I thinking about Brian today, 10 years later? I just received a birthday card from him in my morning email.

Decisions

A few days ago, on EvilBook, a guy from my childhood contacted me. He was using a fake name and I was only kind of certain from his description about who he might be. I peered at his exceptionally limited profile for a few minutes until I saw what I was looking for - he was on a grad class community from his high school, so I knew it was him. We had been in choir together for 2 years, when I was in grade 6 and grade 7. After that, his voice had changed, and he was out. Poor washed out grade 8 choir boy.

Anyhow, after much emailing and catching up and laugh-out-loud-moments at the computer, he wrote in an email "I know the time constraints you may be under, but I'd really like to hang out with you." After getting my husband's permission to have a boy over, "Bernie" (as he likes to be called), came over last night. We laughed and talked and shared memories, and worked out the psychology of teenagers and cultural differences and laughed so hard we cried. We gossiped! It was a shock and surprise to me when he said "I should probably let you get to bed" and I looked at the clock - 4am!

He is so protective of his identity on the internet. He uses a pseudonym on CrackBook, and he uses it for his flickr account and for his email. He's managed a specific level of anonymity that is making me think about how protective of my details I want to be on this journal. As a writer, I feel I need to give an honest, yet entertaining account of how I see the world. It may have some slight embellishments as they make for good writing, but at the same time, I feel I'm giving as honest an account as anyone would like to remember, and I also think that we all spin doctor our experiences to highlight us in the most positive way. So there might be some entries where the antagonist looks like a total moron and I look like a perfect angel. I'm pretty sure that might be embellishment. I truly believe that all interactions bear mutual responsibility.

With that in mind, I've decided that I will not be just sticking to experiences from my distant past. I will be drawing from my everyday life and recent past. Which means I should probably explain a few things. I have been married for close to 2 years to the love of my life. I have a beautiful 8 month old daughter and a precocious 18 month old dog. I am a nurse by profession, a writer by education, a mother at heart. Nothing gives me more joy than watching my daughter interact with the world around her.

I'll be continuing to use the pen-name Ella Brown. Ella for my idol, Ella Fitzgerald. Someone out there is going to be smart enough to figure out who I am. (Someone out there already does, but that's because I told her what I was up to) All I ask is that you keep it to yourself.

Ice Princess

It was the first month of Grade 8, and we were all new to the junior high and desperately trying to figure out our social ladder. I'd been a nerd since kindergarten, and had that prickly protective coating that some nerds develop. Even though I was wildly sensitive to the barbs I'd endured all through Elementary school, I secretly hoped I'd find my place in the sun in junior high, that the teasing would stop and I'd find a place in the popular crowd.

But damn that prickly shell, it wasn't to be so.

Of all the things I was sensitive about, my size was the worst. I had always been the chubby kid, so was pretty used to the fat label, but I was also taller than everyone at 5'8" and most of the guys in my grade came up to Boob Height. And oh, did I have me some boobs. They weren't so much actually large as they were comparatively enormous. In a school where most girls still didn't need bras, I was in a C cup. It took me 10 minutes on the first day of school to figure out I'd never make the cool crowd because I physically didn't fit in. But rather than walk confidently down the hall, proud of my adult body, I would slouch everywhere, trying to blend into the walls. I was the only kid in grade 8 too tall to stuff into a locker, I was the only pasty redhead in my grade and I was the only girl trying to hide boobs.

The popular girls were so instantly evil that I assumed no one but the nerds would continue to accept me. So I accepted my fate, and settled back into the Nerd Herd, licking my wounds and making my prickly shell thicker and more prickly. I assumed that if the popular boys wanted to talk to me it was to make fun of me. That's the way it was in Elementary school. This was right after the summer of Jamie, and yet, I was still totally clueless to how teenage boys thought and operated. I could not possibly conceptualize any boy wanting to talk to me because I interested him.

It was a Thursday afternoon. Even 20 years later, I know it was Thursday. We were in either English or Social Studies - I can't remember which because we had the same teacher for both classes - our entire class was with the same teacher for both classes. And it was the last class of the day. Clayton Smith was the cutest and most popular of all the boys in Grade 8. He was notorious for having kissed with tongues in Grade 7, and there were even whispers about him doing naughtier things at the first party of the year. He was also exactly Boob Height on me. Which he commented on nastily at every opportunity.

During this particular class, Clayton had been poking me in the back repeatedly with his pencil. I finally turned around and hissed at him to stop.

"Stop being such a retard, Clayton!"

"I will if you go out with me tomorrow night."

"Yeah?" I snorted in disgust, "Right." I went back to copying notes off the board.

Miss K. left the classroom to get something from the photocopier, and Clayton resumed his assault. I turned around, grabbed his pencil and snapped it in half.

"Come on, go out with me, Ella."

"No." I turned back to the front of the class. My friend Amy was watching from her seat across from me, and I rolled my eyes at her, so she'd know I wasn't taking him seriously. She had a huge crush on him.

Clayton got up and came around the the front of the desk. He put his hands down on the surface and leaned into me. I scooted my chair back about a foot.

"Go out with me, Ella."

All the conversations that had sprung up when Miss K. left the room stopped as our peers suddenly realized there was gossip to be had.

"No." I still didn't think he was serious. I thought he was hoping I'd say yes, so he could make fun of Fat Ella for thinking a boy would want to go out with her.

"Why not?"

I couldn't actually tell him the real reason I was saying no. I had to think of something. And he was getting painfully close to breaking into my shell where he could actually hurt my feelings.

"Please. As if I want to go out with you. First of all, I happen to have choir practice on Friday nights."

"I'd come to choir practice."

"Right, well, choir practice starts at 4, which means running home so I can get my music, and then running to practice. And then practice is 3 hours long, so it wouldn't be over until 7pm. Isn't that past your bedtime?"

There was a unified intake of air from the entire class. Ella had actually insulted Clayton Smith. Clayton turned red and lifted his hands off my desk.

"Come on, Ella. To a movie?"

"I just told you choir practice doesn't end until 7, so then we would definitely have to go to the late movie. And it 7pm isn't past your bedtime, 11:30 certainly must be."

Clayton blushed a little more. His best friend leaned over to me.

"Don't be a bitch, Ella. He just wants to be the first boy in school to touch your boobs." (And I ask, on what planet would that compel a girl to go out with a boy?) I raised my eyebrows at the friend, and looked back a Clayton, who was glaring daggers at his buddy.

"Really? Clayton?"

He looked back at me and got pink right to his ears.

"Well let me tell you something. I don't need my Mommy to take me to the ticket window when I go to a PG-13 movie to promise I'm old enough to get in. In fact, I don't need my Mommy to take me to R rated movies. I'm certainly not going to show my boobs to you, Clayton Smith. You're just a little boy!"

Miss K walked back into the room before Clayton was able to respond. The bell rang, and I packed up my books and left the school by the door nearest the classroom, too mortified that Clayton had been trying to pick on me like that to face anyone at school. Amy caught up to me a few minutes later, breathless from running to catch up.

"So do you think he was serious?" She managed between breathless gasps.

"Of course he wasn't serious, Amy, he just wanted me to say yes so he could make fun of me." I fought back tears that were threatening to brim over. I was so mad, and so hurt that he would take it so far. And that he would make fun of my boobs, something I had absolutely no control over, and something that I thought I was hiding relatively well with baggy sweatshirts.

"I think he meant it. And if he meant it, he was pretty nice to put up with you making fun of him."

"I assure you, Amy. Clayton Smith did not mean it."


The next morning the school was abuzz with the news of me slamming Clayton. One of the popular girls who was slightly sympathetic to us nerds cornered me and Amy on the way into gym class.

"I'm glad you dissed him, Ella. He's such a jerk. He was just using you, anyhow." I shot Amy a triumphant look. I never thought anything much of it until one night in Denny's, 4 years later. I was in grade 12, but my best friend, Sue, was in college and we'd been at a dance there. After the dance a group of us headed over to Denny's. There was seriously cute boy in the booth next to us, and he kept sliding into my side of the booth and hitting on me, much to my discomfort.

The third time I had to remove his hand from my thigh, I looked him right in the eye.

"Once more, Todd, and I will break every bone in your hand."

"How is it fair that you know my name, and I don't know yours." He slid his arm around my shoulder.

"You offered yours."

"Well, what's yours?"

"Ella."

"Ella what?"

"Ella Brown."

Todd pulled his arm from around me.

"Do you go to PGSS?"

"Yes."

"Did you go to the junior high too?"

"Yes." I wasn't too surprised by the line of questioning - all us high school kids tried to figure out who the other knew when we met in my town. I'd already asked Todd the requisite questions when he'd volunteered his school info. Todd redoubled his efforts to grope me under the table. I laughed a little, to break the tension, as a snatched his hand off me, again.

"You wanna go outside, so we can be alone?" He was attempting to nuzzle me at this point. I looked at him like he was insane.

"Todd, it's -20 out there. Were you hoping to grope me into a snowbank?"

"Well, yeah." And bless Todd's little drunk heart, "I wanted to try to melt the Ice Princess."

"The what?" Sue, her boyfriend and I asked in unison. Certainly he didn't mean I was cold and disinterested in boys. The whole reason Sue's boyfriend had agreed to bring me along to the dance was because I was utterly boy crazy and he was trying to set me up with a friend of his. Todd looked at Sue and Jeff.

"Ella Brown is a total Ice Princess. Clay Smith told me all about her. If this is really the Ella Brown Clay has been talking about for the last 3 years, I really have to get with her. If I can melt the Ice Princess, I'll be a legend."

I could feel the blood draining from my face.

"In order for you to be a legend, Todd, I'd have to be a legend."

"Oh, you are legendary. Clay really wanted to go out with you, and you totally cut him down. It's a wonder you ever get dates at all."

"I don't date high school guys."

"Yeah, well, sweetie, there's a reason why. You're cold. You think you're better than everyone. No one wants to date you, cuz you're kind of a bitch, Ice Princess."

When I was 4 years old, I remember sitting in the McDonalds on Hastings in Burnaby, BC with my Mum. My parents were split up at the time (they later reconciled), and while Mum had been working, Dad had taken me for a custodial visit. He then dropped me back with Mum at the end of her shift and Mum had chosen to take me to McDonalds, which was a HUGE treat.

As we sat, sharing a small fries, Mum asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied, smartly, that I wanted to be 'a McDonalds girl'. Mum gently informed me that being a McDonalds girl was not a career choice. My next choice was to be a Mommy. Seemed like a pretty good gig, right? Mum said it was a good thing to be a Mommy, but I also needed to to have a job, so what did I want to be? (She wasn't saying this to negate the importance of Mom-as-career-choice, but she was a working single Mum at the time, so wanted to remind me sometimes we need to work). I pondered and thought, and came up with some goofy stuff, like 'baton twirler' and some good stuff like 'doctor'.

Years passed, and I still kind of just wanted to be a Mommy. Everything else was really quite secondary.

Davy Jones gadded about the stage beating on a tambourine, and my heart thumped along to the beat, smitten. I leaned closer and closer to the TV until a pillow hit me in the head.

"El! Move! Blocking the Davy!" Alissa pelted me with Mini-Wheats when I didn't move back fast enough. I flopped back onto the couch and sighed heavily, wishing I'd been born around the same time as my mother had. I was 13 and smitten with the 21 year old image of a 40-something has-been.

The summer of 1988 was ridiculously good to me. My choir toured Europe for a world choral competition, and we'd won. I'd come home curvier than I'd left and looking a lot closer to 17 or 18 than just 13. Boys from all over the world seemed to think I was terribly cute. I collected addresses from Polish boys, German boys, Austrian boys, Italian boys, English boys, American boys and Canadian boys while in Europe. And to top it off, I was spending the duration of my vacation in Vancouver at my Gramma's house - and I was Gramma's favourite.

Alissa was from Montreal, and had been a surprise to her aging parents. Consequently, it wasn't too hard to understand she was spoiled rotten and was often sent to stay with her much older sister during the summers while her parents traveled doing humanitarian work. Alissa loved the arrangement. Her sister was lenient, and she was able to go home every fall with stories about The West Coast.

We spoke in capitalized letters and italics a lot, like all young girls are prone to doing, and never more than when we swooned over the Monkees.

"Davy is Too Cute" Alissa complained, "I'd always be worried who was more attractive. Boys should never be cuter than their girlfriends."

"Did you see the hot boy at the pool yesterday?" I changed topics. As much as I like to live in TVland, I was very well aware that kissing came from real live boys, and there were lots of them in Vancouver. The development my Gramma lived in had a community pool, and we were finally old enough to go to it without supervision. That's where we'd seen Him. He was taller than me, and no boys were taller than me when I was 13 (I'm not a giant even, I'm only 5'8"), and he had nice shoulders, the beginnings of a really nice 6-pack and a fantastic bum. My Mum had spent most of the Europe trip teaching me how to suss out a butt. I figured he was probably 17 or 18, and therefore way out of our league, but I still wanted to haunt the pool to see him again. He was a dirty blonde and had a kind of shaggy look to him. The only flaw to my swimming pool Adonis was his complexion. He had rosy pink cheeks. Rosier than mine. And Alissa had also noticed him.

"The boy with the pink cheeks? Yeah, I saw him. I suppose he was cute enough. Honestly, Ella, you are so boy crazy." Alissa sometimes acted like she was terribly superior to me, citing our 1 year age difference. I didn't much mind. We were enough alike that we got along well, and we were physically enough different that we split the boys up without too many fights - I flirted with the boys who liked me, she flirted with the ones who singled her out.

Alissa was tiny - 5 feet nothing and about 95 pounds. She had long brown hair down to her bum, and heavy bangs that helped to mask a nose she hadn't quite grown into yet. Her eyes were green, and she could tan in about 5 minutes of slightly overcast sun. I, on, the other hand, felt like a giant compared to her. My last growth spurt had brought me to my 'adult' height of 5'8". I had shoulder length strawberry blonde hair (the last summer it was that light) and would blister in about 20 minutes at the beach. I was about 160 pounds, which I would kill to be now but that I considered Horrifically Fat at the time. In hindsight, I can see why boys flocked to me. I was a ridiculously curvy green eyed redhead. But beside Alissa, I felt like a Great White Whale.

The boy with the cheeks turned out to be the same age as Alissa. We quickly assimilated Jamie into our friendship and the three of us were inseparable. We'd take off to the beach and spend hours there picking up boys. Jamie would work the girls. He always managed to find us every hour or so to make sure I wasn't getting sunburned. He was sweet that way.

Alissa always managed to pick up boys who were our age. Because of how I looked, I usually snagged the boys who could drive. At 13, I didn't really understand that the 17 and 18 year old boys were looking for a little more than a girl who might kiss under the right circumstances, but Jamie tended to look out for me.

"Ella, you just don't get it. Guys think about sex, like, every 6 minutes or something."

"So?" I was so wrapped up in my fat complex that I didn't realize I was the body shape boys fantasized about. I was fairly certain only loser boys would want to consider sex with me. Besides, I couldn't even hear the word sex without blushing. Obviously I was not a candidate for Beach Vixen 1988. Jamie shook his head. Clearly he was giving up on me.

Beach days all kind of blur together for me now - not surprising considering the passage of time. At some point Jamie had decided he wanted a girlfriend, and had chosen Alissa. I think he realized we would have chased off every other girl he'd chose and in all likelihood had flipped a coin between us. Beach trips weren't as fun when I had to play 3rd wheel. Alissa absolutely still wanted to go because she was constantly hedging her bets and angling for an older boy. She had no qualms about being a Summer Girl*. I got pretty jealous of the situation - partly because I kept getting sunburnt because Al wouldn't let Jamie sunscreen me anymore and partly because it sucked being the odd man out.

At some point Alissa and Jamie sort-of-broke-up. I didn't know if Alissa broke it off, or if Jamie did. They still made out when it was convenient, but I was pretty sure whichever one had broken it off, it was because I was really good at making them uncomfortable. Which made me feel a little guilty. I needn't have felt guilty.

One afternoon we were walking from the bus stop back to our neighbourhood. We had to cross a 4 lane parkway and the walk light was so short we always got trapped on the median and had to wait until the next light. Alissa and Jamie had been bickering the whole way home. To the point where she refused to sit with us on the bus. She'd speak to me from 2 rows away, but wouldn't sit with me. I tried to go sit with her, but she kept sending me back to Jamie with the admonition that we could discuss it later.

When we'd got to the intersection, she'd dashed across as quickly as she could. Jamie and I had tried to keep up, but it was rush hour. Jaywalking was tantamount to suicide.

"What the hell did you do to her Jamie?" I screamed over the din of the cars passing on either side of us.

"What did I do? Are you kidding me?" Jamie yelled back, leaning close.

"Why is she so mad at you? And why won't she tell me about it?"

"Ella, she's mad at me because of you. We broke up because of you."

"Well, duh! I know that. She already told me that. She broke it off with you because I was jealous, and my friendship means more to her." I was dripping italics at him. The red from Jamie's cheeks started creeping outward across his face until he was completely scarlet.

"Jeez, El, just because you're a year younger than us doesn't mean you can get away with stupid. I broke up with her."

"Why?"

"Because I couldn't stop thinking about this!" He was so close he really didn't need to have yelled, but before I could answer him, he'd grabbed me and kissed me. It was sloppy and wet and somewhat gross. I put my hand on his chest, thinking I was going to push him away, but instead my heart started racing. I felt light-headed and tangled my fist into his shirt to stop from falling over. He threw his arms around me and pulled me into his chest. I couldn't breathe, but I really didn't want him to stop and I thought my heart was going to explode, it was beating so fast. My chest tightened and I broke away from him gasping for air and still clinging to him.

I had a vague awareness that the light had changed to green and then back to red for us while he was kissing me. It wouldn't have mattered. I couldn't move. My legs threatened to give out. I looked up at him tentatively. He wasn't as flushed, but the hand that was on my face was trembling. He leaned back into me and kissed me again. I braced myself for another onslaught, but he was gentler. Someone driving by screamed out their window at us, and Jamie pulled away.

"You taste like blackberries, Ella."

"The light is green."

There was no hope of catching up with Alissa. Jamie laced his fingers between mine and we silently walked the rest of the way home. When he kissed me goodbye at my Gramma's front door, I got it. I'd finally tasted what boys were thinking about when I'd let them kiss me all summer long.




In a postscript that is just too wildly convenient, the next afternoon, Alissa and I were sitting at the pool waiting for Jamie to meet us. He showed up in a dirty t-shirt and cut-offs - totally unprepared to swim.

"My parents are moving back to Squamish."

"When?" I asked.

"On Saturday."

"What?" I was astonished. I wanted to spent the last two weeks of my vacation doing more of that kissing with him!

"Well, school starts in 2 weeks, and they want us settled and ready to start classes." He offered.

I looked at Alissa, shocked. From the look on her face, she hadn't known either. It was probably the best thing for Alissa and me. Our friendship returned to normal very quickly, for as far as she was concerned he was just another boy that summer who hadn't known which of us he liked better. But of all the many boys I kissed that summer, Jamie is the only one I remember.









*One of the older boys whose eye I'd caught taught us that term. The rich West Van college boys called the random beach bunnies Summer Girls. They used it as a term of warning - "Some are 14, some are 15, some are legal" - Alissa and I never admitted our age. We let boys assume we were legal - Jamie was right - we just didn't get it.

Benchwarming

When I was in college, I took a creative writing class (well, I took many, to be honest). My first creative writing instructor seemed determined to give us bizarre assignments. One of them was to describe a special place. A place that seemed made for us, and that was special to no one else. I remember spending most of the week trying to figure out where my most favoured spot was. The day before the assignment was due, I finally figured it out.

In my final year of high school, I had discovered hockey. Which sounds like a ridiculous thing for a 17 year old Canadian girl to discover, right? I mean, shouldn't I have been born with a stick in my hand, and a healthy appetite for on-ice carnage? But no, I was one of those kids who had limited exposure to hockey outside of HNIC. You see, there was this boy...(I think most of my memories will start this way.) He was a hockey player, and he was in my English Lit class, and he was - well, he was dreamy. He had a french name, hockey hair and a really nice ass. I was up smit creek without a paddle.

Anyhow, he played on the local team. He put free tickets aside for me one night, and all it took was one game, and I was hooked. The next thing I knew, I was singing the national anthem for the team. He was traded, my heart was broken and soon after I graduated from high school. But I didn't stop volunteering with the team. I was the Anthem Girl.

That first year, they didn't really know what to do with me. They'd had a carpet, and they would roll it out onto the ice. I would walk to centre ice, and a microphone would drop from the press box, and I'd sing the anthem. At some point early in the season, something happened to the red carpet, and suddenly the guys were having to walk me out onto the ice.

Oh, no! You're thinking that centre ice was my special place. It wasn't. This is just backstory.


Between the home team locker room and the team trainer's room was a corridor to the ice. There was a bench just outside the trainer's room. It had been painted red, probably around the same time as I had been born, and there were grooves and chips in the paint from years of players lacing up on it. About 10 minutes before the guys would hit the ice, I would take a hot glass of water and lemon juice and walk down to the bench. I would sit down, drink my water and rub my throat for the few minutes before the game in order to keep my throat warm. It was so loud most nights that I could even warm up without anyone other than the trainer noticing.

On that bench, I was important. The guys on the team, the same age or just a year or two older, respected me more when I was seated on the bench than any other boy in my acquaintence. Boys so handsome they should never have spoken to me otherwise would sit down in the minutes before the game and smile, squeeze me for luck, kiss my forehead. As the first year of my experience progressed, I began to warm up before heading to the bench, to ensure I had time to be bright and social for my boys. The older guys on the team, the ones who would be 'aging out', in particular thought I was very important.

A tall, lanky defenceman tried to be shocking about sex one night. When I was appropriately shocked, he eased off the jokes and said quite seriously, "Darlin', don't ever start having sex. Because once you start, it's hard to stop. You keep wanting to do it again. And just like riding a bicycle, you just don't forget how." I laughed at the absurdity of the comparison because I was terribly inexperienced.

The first string goalie thought it was wildly funny to lumber over to me when I wasn't watching and wrap his gear-clad arms around me. During the playoffs especially, he would pull that stunt. One night he squeezed until his gear made a wet sucking noise. The smell never came out of my dress.

A forward I knew from my best friend's youth group would sit down beside me and sing songs from Sesame Street to me. At first, I was mortified, and would just blush and giggle, and say nothing. One night as he trailed off in his usual part of the song, I leaned into his shoulder and sang - "Don't worry if it's not good enough, for anyone else to hear. Just sing, sing a song." He came away that night with a hat trick.

My buddy from English Lit never saw me on that bench, although he heard me sing the anthem a number of times. He was traded the same night as I 'debuted' as the Anthem Girl.


For four years, I sang the national anthem for my local hockey team. At the end of the 4 years, over 80 young men had played on the team. Throughout it all, veterans would pass the knowledge of who I was on to the rookies. Some years, I was everyone's good luck charm. Other years, I was not. But through it all, from fifteen minutes until game-time, the bench was my throne.