Nobody Loves A Farting Princess

by Jeni Birr

  If you never play the game

  Then it never ends in pain

  Send me back to lovers’ hell

  I’m going home to lovers’ hell

  It’s a place I’ve come to know oh so well

  I’m turning in my keys

  Hope has given up on me

  I’m going home to lovers’ hell

  Yeah I’m going home to lovers’ hell

  But I’ve made my home in love…

  ~*~

  I also went through a brief phase in my teen years when I discovered I could belch incredibly loudly when I wanted to after drinking carbonated beverages. He always used to say to me in his scolding tone: “Jenniferrrrrr….nobody loves a farting princess.” To which I would respond that I had burped, not farted, but he said it was generally the same thing. It was basically his way of telling me that it was very un-lady-like. I swear he told me once what that phrase was from, some book or movie or something, but I don’t remember. I’ve asked everyone I know and googled the piss out of it, but can’t find it. Do you know? If you do know, please contact me. It’s probably copyrighted material and I’m going to get sued. That will be fun.

  He was also one of the funniest people I ever knew, but maybe that’s just because he was my dad. One of my favorite stories about him is a time we were walking our dog, Oreo, and somehow it came up what we wanted done with our remains when we passed. I said some hippie crap about wanting my ashes tossed in an easterly wind at sunrise over the ocean or something. He, after a brief pause said he’d like to bronzed and turned into a lamp so that he could live forever going from garage sale to garage sale. I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself.

  CHAPTER 3

  So, you know that I was a creative child, I didn’t handle my teenage years well, and you’ve met my mother and father. If you’re wondering about my brother, we don’t really have much of a relationship. Aside from our early years where we bickered as much as any other young siblings do, we’ve never really had much in common. He likes video games and Japanese animation, and staying inside and keeping all of his friends online, where as I always have to be doing something and until recently, didn’t do much sitting still. My mother has a favorite story where I wrote his name on the wall as a child trying to get him in trouble, overlooking the fact he was barely capable of even holding a crayon at that point in time. We get along just fine and promised my dad we’d call each other on their birthday, but beyond that, we never know what to say. He never went to camp, or really left the house as a kid much. I, personally taught him how to ride a bike around the age of sixteen or so because my dad paid us each a hundred bucks. He never learned to drive a car, but he’s gotten pretty good at the various bus systems in the random cities he’s lived in. He has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Wayne State University, has since earned another bachelor’s in Accounting from Ashford University, and is currently working towards a master’s degree in Computer Sciences, from Armstrong Atlantic State University, in Savannah, Georgia, where my mother went. He only recently acquired his first “real” job. He bussed tables and did dishes at a couple restaurants, but they both closed, and I don’t even think he got paid for one of them because they hired him all of two weeks before they closed, so I’m sure they knew they were going to be closing. He’s very smart, but rather lacking in social graces.

  Um, where was I? Well, let’s pick up around the end of high school as I think we’ve covered all the relevant material up to this point. I was the social chairman of the choir for three years straight, (freshmen couldn’t run because they’re chosen the year before) uncontested for two of them. I planned parties, and lock-ins and picnics and all kinds of fun things. I was also a lead in the spring musical three years running; Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof, Irene Malloy in Hello Dolly and Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. I didn’t audition freshmen year because I was babysitting, but you knew that already. I really enjoyed the stage, particularly singing. I wrote a song for my graduation which I was honored to perform in front of a few thousand people at our commencement ceremony, which is also one of the highlights of my life. My friend, Elena, and I made fairy wings that we wore during the procession; prompting a new rule for following ceremonies that nothing could be worn outside the gown. I also designed and sewed my own prom dress inspired by the nymph character in one of my brother’s Dungeons and Dragons books. It was sea-foam green with ripped-looking edges, rope straps and wrapped around my torso, and I had ivy running up my leg with flowers in my hair. It earned me a centerfold in the senior edition of the yearbook. A picture of it is also in my art portfolio.

  It was also during my senior year that somehow, my friends and I discovered that Canada was only twenty minutes away, and they had veggie burgers at their McDonald’s, and they didn’t ID for tattoos and piercings, and just had way cooler things to buy at their mall, for way cheaper because the exchange rate was way better in those days. I usually drove, and like I mentioned earlier, we literally got searched every time we went over. You didn’t even need a passport in those days, a photo ID and birth certificate would suffice. In March or April, one of my best friends, Leah, and I decided to get tattoos. She got a pretty swirly blue flash piece on her hip. I wanted fairy wings on my back, but ended up with the trashiest set of rainbow colored butterfly-looking cartoon wings that three hundred American dollars could buy. I was proud of them for about a month until the seventy first person said “cool butterfly.” I just stopped correcting people. There was a separate piercing place called “Need a New Hole” and I got just about everything pierced that I could hide from my dad. He had let me get my navel done when I was thirteen, and then my eyebrow, which he wasn’t happy about. I had two hundred of my schoolmates sign a petition freshman year that tongue rings were cool, so he finally agreed to that but made me promise no more. I didn’t keep that promise very long. By my eighteenth birthday I had seven holes in each ear, both eyebrows, my tongue, my navel, both nipples and clit hood; the last three of which my dad did not know about. Shortly thereafter I got my septum done which I could flip up inside my nose, and did my own lip, which dad made me take out, but I re-pierced it a few years later, along with my nostril.

  The year I graduated, my drama teacher started a summer troupe of alumni and started putting on a play every year, the first of which was The Rimers of Eldridge. It was a rather unconventional play that bounced around a lot, had the whole cast on the stage the entire time, had no scenes, only jumped from one section to another for two acts, but I loved it. I was initially cast in a small role, but when the girl’s parents read the script for the role that I wanted, Eva, they pulled her out and I got it. Eva is a young girl, probably twelve or so and she’s slightly disfigured, walks with a limp. She’s an only child with a very over-protective single mother and is very naïve. I loved her innocence. She has a good friend who is a boy nearly six years her senior and he snaps near the end of the play and tries to rape her in the woods. She screams and the neighborhood crazy homeless man intervenes, saving her, but another neighbor overhears, runs to the scene and mistakenly shoots the homeless man and kills him, and Eva can’t say anything because she’s too terrified, so everything just goes back to the way it was before. This was the most fun I ever had on a play, even though there was no music in it. I loved all the new people I had met; Steve, in particular. We started dating right before I left for college. He had very pretty eyes, and could cry on command, which I’m sure he used on me at least once or twice. We had a good six months before it all went to hell and I never heard from him again, likely for the better.

  My Sailor*2002

  I was standing on the pier

  Waiting for my sailor

  To take me away from here

  And show me love that’s true

  I was frightened of that water

  And everything unclear

  But as the sun was rising

  His sails came in view

  With eyes that shined like silver

 
; Skin warmer than the sand

  Kissed me so gently

  And took my hand

  Said please my frightened angel

  I’ll show you worlds you’ve only dreamed

  But you must leave your shoreline

  Come away with me

  Tell me you’ll wait

  And simply understand

  That I nearly drowned

  The last time I left the sand

  I said my love, I’m sorry

  I’m just not set to said

  He said my love, just have faith

  Love will always prevail

  But he started getting restless

  Giving up on me

  And as the sun was setting

  He left me for the sea

  Darling, why leave me

  Did you not know?

  I was well over waist deep

  Nearly set to go

  I’d battled all my demons

  Swallowed all my pride

  It took everything inside me

  To step into the tide

  Cuz you said you’d wait

  Said you’d understand

  But you didn’t wait

  Now I’m crying in the sand

  And now I’m standing on the pier

  Longing for my sailor

  Who left me crying here

  The way I knew he’d do

  All the more frightened of that water

  And everything unclear

  For although the sun keeps rising

  Love just isn’t true

  For you said you’d wait

  Til I was set to go

  But you didn’t wait

  Well my love,

  I told you so

  ~*~

  That summer, I also met Jack, who honestly, I thought was out of my league. He was a few years older, had dreadlocks and a lip ring, and I was so turned on by him, that he intimidated me. I don’t even know why, honestly. I had already given my virginity to my high school sweetheart. Well, to be honest, I offered it, he didn’t even ask, but we were going to be together forever and get married anyway, so I figured why wait? Right? Yeah. So, I hadn’t been pure for almost two years, but, I had never been turned on the way I was around him, and he liked me! But for some reason, I was so, I don’t know, nervous, overwhelmed, by how much I wanted him that I didn’t call him back, even after he called me to hang out, a few times.

  Sleeping with El Sol*2001

  (Spoken word piece)

  The sun is beginning to awaken

  But I have yet to sleep.

  Peeking over the horizon,

  Lighting my humble room and me on my computer

  Debating with the idea of crawling into the bed.

  Not particularly sleepy, but feeling rather obligated to rest.

  My body treats me well, and I suppose I should return the favor.

  Recharge my battery before beginning a new day.

  So much left to do.

  Sleeping seems such a waste of time.

  But if I sleep, perhaps I'll have a moment's freedom from the thoughts of you that plague me. Haven't seen you in 4 days, probably won't for several more, than not for weeks after that, if ever again.

  We agreed to keep it casual, I warned you of my fear. Said I'd run screaming if I started to fall, but now I'm falling and screaming but not running, and apparently not sleeping and only thinking, thinking about you and your lovely little way of cleverly agreeing to the terms of our casual "not relationship" and then twisting the rules right out from under me. Didn't make me come to you, but backed me up to the edge and let me fall. You're winning, I'm falling, I'm screaming, was doing so well, now it all goes to hell since you kissed me.

  My lips may not have been upon yours since that day but I haven't stopped kissing you. For three hours they never parted, for 4 days they've still felt you. Do I run, do I stay, do I fall, do I pull you down with me? Do I go to sleep because tomorrow I am one day closer to saying goodbye? Do I stay awake because I don't know that goodbye is what I want for I was sure that I wouldn't fall but I did but I can still be saved. In three weeks I move away. There is time only for several more visits between now and then anyhow. Perhaps if I loved you for just a few hours.

  No.

  I will not fall in love.

  Perhaps if we kiss for just a few hours more, but do not fall in love.

  If we giggle and play but then move away, and see others as though nothing had happened.

  I won't fall, I won't run, I won't scream...

  I won't love.

  However, I think I will sleep.

  The sun thinks I should sleep.

  ~*~

  Jack and his friends however, were “freegans.” They only ate what they could get for free (most of the time). Sometimes this meant dumpster diving, and sometimes this meant shoplifting. Remember when I mentioned I never learned stealing was bad as a child? Even though I only saw Jack a few times, I started shoplifting, and I got good at it.

  There were rules though. Rule number one: always buy something. Don’t ever walk out of the store with stolen goods without making a purchase. Rule number two: only from big, evil corporations that probably have a “theft budget” line on their Profit and Loss statements. Rule number three: never get too comfortable. Once you stop paying attention, you get caught. I even made a large purse with easy openings specifically for shoplifting. I could slip just about anything in there. My personal best was a pair of boots I really wanted, from a smaller shop that certainly broke rule number two. They were a foot high heel and they went more than halfway up the calf, so they were no small feat (no pun intended). I managed to slip one into my shoplifting bag but knowing the other wouldn’t fit I called to my friend across the store that I was going to put money in the meter and would be right back. I did put money in the meter, but I also put the boot in my car, and went back and snagged the other one. I’m not proud of it now, but I can’t lie, I sure was that day. Leah, who was also in on this bad habit took a choker right off a mannequin. We were so proud of ourselves. We’ll come back to this though.

  Being that my dad loved Michigan State so much, I think it was just assumed I would go there. I applied to a total of four schools, and got into all of them, but I ultimately ended up going to Michigan State. One trip up to see the campus was all I needed. The trees were amazing. I never even went to the other three. My dad couldn’t be happier. The only problem was, Steve was staying home in the Southfield area and commuting to Wayne State; and most of my friends were a year younger and in their senior year of high school, back home, except Leah, who was also going to Wayne State. I didn’t know anyone at Michigan State and despite how social I was in high school, I was not very good at meeting people I didn’t already know, unlike my father. I went home every weekend, except for the one that Steve and I drove out to Chicago to get my tattoo covered by James Kern, a renowned inksmith that I had discovered in a tattoo magazine clipping on the wall in the bathroom of the local tattoo studio on campus. That did not cost three hundred dollars. He charged $175 an hour in those days and he worked on me about eight hours over two days. A few years later I had them added onto when he was in town for the Motor City Tattoo Expo and his rate had gone up to $200 an hour and he worked on me for another ten hours, and then four more hours the next year. You can do the math. To this day, I have no idea where that money came from. The quality of the work was completely worth it however, and I will never go to another artist. It’s so faded at this point, but I don’t have the money to fly out to Portland, where he is now. Or the money to get it touched up to begin with.

  I do think there was one key factor that may have helped me learn to like State. I auditioned for one of their A Cappella groups called Capital Green as I had been big into choir and our A Cappella group in high school. I almost made it. I even got a call-back. But alas, the poor fellow who called to let me know the director wanted the other girl swore he would have chosen me, but it was not his choice to make.
He was probably just being nice. I cried, but I’m a big crybaby. You’ll come to learn this about me. I do think had I made it into that group I would have immediately gained a group of friends that already went to the school and could show me around and take me to parties and introduce me to the Spartan lifestyle. However, I did not, so I went home every weekend and hung out with Steve and my creative friends that all went to Wayne State, where I should have gone in the first place. Around December Leah introduced me to some new people she’d just met in her apartment building on Prentis Street in midtown Detroit, and my life, quite literally, changed forever.

  CHAPTER 4

  I believe it was the week between Christmas and New Years and I was home on break for a bit. Leah was incredibly musically gifted and was going to Wayne State for music, I believe. She called me one day and told me about this open-mic night I had to come to because she wanted me to meet her new friend, Blair, who was teaching her to play the guitar. He hosted it every Sunday night at a café in Ferndale I’d been to a few times, called Xhedo’s. I was enthralled. There were poets and singer/songwriters and everyone who signed up could do three pieces or fifteen minutes, whichever came first. Blair, as the host, would insert a song or a poem here or there before introducing the next act. I also met his roommate, Dale Wilson, and another musician, Dan Minard, and another open-mic host, Sean Fitzgerald. They were all very talented musicians. Leah, apparently hit the jackpot of budding artists by moving into this particular building, with our other gifted friend, Sally, to attend Wayne State. I have to admit, I was a bit jealous. Over the next few months I taught myself to play the guitar (very poorly), wrote a few songs, and even got up on stage and performed a few times, at Blair’s request, under the stage name “Pixie,” which many of those people still call me. I was terrible, but Blair had this way of making you think you were better than you were and that every performance is just experience for the next one. He made you want to get better.

  Mirror Mirror*2002