I just wanted the girls to be nice. They just wanted to have someone to hate. I wasn’t part of the cool clique, so it was easy to pick on me. I definitely didn’t fight back hard enough. In fact, I never threw punches, literal or verbal. I wasn’t a master debater, so there was no talking my way out of any of it. I just suffered through it, hoping I would just disappear into anonymity, until I couldn’t take it anymore.
It got so bad that by the time I was in my sophomore year (that’s right, folks, we’re not even out of year two yet), I was an emotional wreck with nothing left to lose and at the end of my rope. I mustered up all the courage I could and decided to finally talk to my mom and dad. Then, as if a dam had burst, I unleashed the agony of the last few years on them. It was frightening, cathartic, and ultimately sobering. Instead of understanding and compassion, my words were met with utter disbelief. I had hidden it all so well and for so long that they thought I was exaggerating and being dramatic. The emptiness and hopelessness of that moment has stayed with me to this day. I cried and begged my mom to help me and get me out of that high school only to hear her tell me that she would make a few calls to the school. But I would not be deterred.
The perpetual stomach cramps I had from my crying fits had pushed me to a tipping point, and I began to beg and plead with them daily until they gave in. I’m not sure they ever really understood it all, but they saw all they needed to see in my eyes and the shell of a person I’d slowly become. Then, months later, one day it happened. They took me out of my personal hell by switching me from my all-girl Catholic high school to a coed public high school. Just like that I got a second chance. Don’t get me wrong, it was a temporary relief but a welcome one at that. After all, high school is still a proctologist’s dream—buildings full of assholes! But at least these were different assholes, and I was now better equipped to deal with them. I have to admit that escaping from the perils of almost drowning in an estrogen-filled kiddie pool was a welcome relief. Gender segregation is archaic and so unnatural. Still, my new school wasn’t without its challenges. I had a fresh batch of bullies to face, my own baggage to deal with, and of course, the promise of the perpetual Rock’em Sock’em Robots game known as adolescence.
My sophomore and junior years weren’t as bad as before, but they had their highs and lows, most of them served with a generous portion of “not this shit again.” My cans continued to dominate the news—because, let’s face it, high school gossip is essentially Access Hollywood, but uglier—still, I did my best to keep my head down and try to fit in. No matter what I did, no matter how good my intentions were, I would always end up the subject of one controversy or another with the girls. It’s a gift. The University of Phoenix should offer an online degree in High School Mindfuckery because it would give all those mingers who peaked then something to do when they’re not asking you if you want fries with that. In retrospect, I have to admit signing up for the swim team out of the gate, at the advice of my new guidance counselor/swim team coach, probably wasn’t the best move. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“These Aliens are a bunch of cunts!”
—Charlize Theron
A couple of years ago, as anti-bullying had finally become a public campaign and I had contributed my story to the conversation, my dad and I went drinking together, and he apologized to me for not understanding how badly I was tormented. He had read my interview about what I had gone through and then had come across an episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes one night where they did an in-depth feature on the subject that ended up being quite the revelation for him. I remember him saying, “I get it now,” with tears in his eyes, “and I’m really sorry. If there’s anything I could do to go back and change it, I would.” It was so sweet, but he really didn’t need to apologize to me. Because when it counted, my parents were always there for me. Through the meaningful and meaningless times, even when they didn’t quite understand what my teenage mouth was saying (because most parents don’t speak pubescent assclown), they loved me enough to support me. They were the emotional Wonderbra I always needed. Who could ask for more than that?
Here’s the thing: Of course I wish that hadn’t happened to me, but I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t. It forced me to eventually figure out how to better stick up for myself and prepared me for the bullying I’d get as an adult from female execs in Hollywood, Twitter trolls, and self-righteous celebs (see Chapter 15: A Kick in the Cunt). Also, one of the more hurtful insults the mean girls would hurl at me again and again was that I was “worthless.” At the time, I believed them. I truly didn’t think I was special in any way. The bullying was a source of so much pain, but it pushed me to figure out a new purpose or passion in life. Something that would drive me to get the hell out of Buffalo.
That passion turned out to be music.
I love all music. Period. It was all around me growing up, so I had a well-rounded education. Buffalo has a rich music history, being home to Rick James, Natalie Merchant, Goo Goo Dolls, and Ani DiFranco, to name a few, and of course, there was my uncle Willie Nile, a legend in his own right. A few of my other uncles were in bands, too, and they’d let me hang out while they’d jam. Uncle Kevin had a huge record collection and listened to a lot of David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and Peter Gabriel. Opera wafted through my other grandma’s house at all times. My parents listened to fifties and sixties music, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and Barbra Streisand. My one significant high school boyfriend, Pete, was a skateboarder who had long beautiful hair like Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he liked punk bands like The Germs and The Damned.
But by far my biggest musical influence was my older brother, Sean. I absolutely worshipped him when I was growing up. I emulated his every move, copied his fashion style, adopted his vernacular, and of course, wholeheartedly embraced his taste in music. Hence the reason why I am now the world’s foremost expert on glam metal! I was his mini-me. I’m sure I was the pesky kid sister he couldn’t shake who was all over him like a dog with a bone, but he never showed it. He was my hero growing up. He always made time for shenanigans with his little sis. Like when we were kids, we would play air band in the backyard, standing on the picnic table like it was the stage at Madison Square Garden (my sister, Kate, was a preppy teenager who didn’t have time for my childish things and quit the family “band,” but my big bro and I were always down for a show to an audience of two—my parents). Then there was the time when, after everyone had gone to bed, we snuck downstairs to watch the movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. He was the coolest!
I would buy him Metal Edge magazine for his birthday, but secretly it was for me. I’d do his chores in exchange for the best pictures he’d collected of his favorite bands. He lived in the attic and plastered his walls with the coolest metal posters, so I swapped out my Michael Jackson and Madonna posters for all my new favorite bands—Skid Row, Poison, Bon Jovi, Warrant, Cinderella, KISS, Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, and Slaughter. My mom was appalled by all of this. She didn’t want me taping anything, let alone these boys in drag, to the wall (parents just don’t understand).
But there was no stopping me now. I became obsessed with glam metal. The guy-liner, the long hair, the religion-revealing leather pants, it made me swoon. They were so pretty, but they were men, manly men! And they were talented! They were living the lifestyle that I wanted to live: modern day vampires. Up all night, sleep all day, sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ fuckin’ roll!!
I wasn’t old enough to go to concerts when my favorite bands came to Buffalo, so Sean would sneak me into some local clubs. The nightlife felt like home to me. I was born with the DNA to party, but more importantly, this was where I decided I was going to turn my passion for music into my career. My goal would be to work at a major record label in LA, where all the big ones were based, and promote bands. I vowed to myself that nothing would stop me from getting there.
As my senior year began, my priority was getting an internship so I could have a
solid extracurricular on my résumé. I set my sights on getting one of only five offered to seniors at my school. It was extremely competitive; you really had to knock the socks off the selection committee to snag a spot. The problem was that I wasn’t that good of a student. I wasn’t stupid, but school and I got along like oil and water. I was always precocious and took every opportunity to learn and experience new things. I spent most of my time in high school being more nervous than a Winger fan at a Pantera concert. It was hard to focus. I wasn’t much of a troublemaker, either, although I did get sent home once for wearing a T-shirt that said MOTHERFUCKER on it. Though I have to admit, that was a high point for my fashion sense back then. Regardless, I knew if I wanted one of these internships, I really had to go balls out and state my case.
To make matters more complicated, my school didn’t offer anything relevant like a music internship, which was what I really needed for my plan. They just had standard ones at the local hospital, public defender’s office, or working for the Buffalo Bills, which is exciting if picking up sweaty jocks is your idea of a life well lived, but I had my eyes on something entirely different. I realized that I had to get inventive and somehow find a way to blow the committee’s minds. What I needed was for them to approve me for an internship at Amherst Records, a reputable local label. To that end, I set upon a mountain of research and legwork in order to create a presentation about how the music industry worked and what I could learn from interning there and how that would then tie into my future academic plans. It was a huge roll of the dice, but when the selection committee realized I had taught them something in my presentation, they were totally impressed. I got the internship!!! It was a gloriously fulfilling moment in my life and proof that once I set my mind to something, I will “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” That would not be the only time in my life a healthy dose of crafty determination would come in handy.
With the bullying behind me and a newfound sense of purpose ahead of me, I set free the fearless and whimsical girl who had been trapped behind a wall of insecurity and self-consciousness and started making plans for the future.
However, the present wasn’t quite done with me yet.
3
A TWIST IN THE ROAD
If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
—T. S. Eliot
Woody Allen once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” Well, God must have been laughing his ass off during my senior year of high school. You see, I had it all figured out: a new boyfriend, a new job, and a killer internship at a record label. I was going to have little time for the nonsense with the girls in school, and I was going to be focused on my future career in music. Everything was going to be fun and simple and easy. Not so, as I was about to experience one of those defining moments that tears apart who you are and rebuilds you into who you’re supposed to be. Of course, I didn’t know that then, but there appeared to be a twist in the road ahead.
My senior year started with a bang. Literally. I was in love with a boy named Pete, and all was right with the world. The first time I laid eyes on him was on a sunny afternoon in the park. Through a smoky haze of hippie stoners dancing around to a bootleg of the Grateful Dead, I noticed this beautiful boy off to the side, playing Hacky Sack. Every time he would leap into the air to catch it, his long hair would flow in the wind like Nicolas Cage’s locks in the beginning of the movie Con Air … almost in slow motion. It was mesmerizing. I was so lost in it. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Just like in Wayne’s World, I could hear Gary Wright’s song “Dream Weaver” wafting through the atmosphere. I was his and he was going to be mine. All he had to do was say hi. But sadly, he was one of those tragically shy hot guys. No matter. He eventually got the hint and JACKPOT!!
Pete and I were inseparable. We were ridiculous. Like a couple of out-of-control, horny teenagers, we spent every waking minute at his house, trying to have sex. Mostly because that’s exactly what we were and it was the only time in our lives we could get away with that excuse. The only hiccup was Pete lived with his mom. So having sex was all about timing or the risk of being caught ass-up giving his mom a mental picture of her son to last a lifetime. Not on my watch. Fortunately, his mom was a bartender at a local dive, which meant she was gone from happy hour until whenever the local drunks decided they weren’t happy anymore, which usually meant we’d have the place to ourselves from 5 P.M. to about 3 A.M.
So I settled into my daily routine, which was school until 2 P.M., then over to Pete’s house for sex, grilled cheese sandwiches with mustard hearts (my specialty), a dose of Star Trek: The Next Generation followed by more sex, and then home. The only real intrusions we faced were dealing with his mom on those few occasions when she would come home drunk with her boyfriend, all loopy and frisky, forget we were there, stumble over us in the living room, then start screaming that two homeless people had broken into her house and try to call the cops. That and Pete’s adorable dog, Casey, whose fascination with the horizontal mambo bordered on the absurd.
Casey was always getting himself in the middle of things he shouldn’t. You see, like most pets, he loved watching us have sex. In fact, thanks to Casey, I’ll never forget the very first time I had an orgasm. Pete and I were upstairs in his bedroom, deeply focused on performing government-mandated stress tests on his mattress. As my body edged closer and closer to a soul-shattering mega-explosion, so did the level of commotion we were making. Lost in the moment, we had caught Casey’s attention and tickled his curiosity. So, unbeknownst to us, up the stairs and into the bedroom he came, slowly nosing his way onto the bed. I should have heard him breathing or seen the light from the hallway, but instead, all I felt, as I was violently climaxing, was a cold, wet nose up my ass!! The shock of it made me tense up and scream so loudly, it made Pete think he was the “Einstein of orgasms.” He took a victory lap and declared himself the “Pontiff of poonani.” I never had the heart to tell him what had actually happened … until now, I guess.
All things considered, life was good. But just like every great episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, it was all about to end.
Days turned into weeks and before we knew it, we were having our one-month anniversary, which is like a year for a teenager. It’s a big fucking deal. But there was to be no celebration. Pete got the news that his father, who lived in Florida, had been diagnosed with a late-stage cancer, so he immediately left to be with him. His one-week trip turned into three months away, ending in gut-wrenching sadness. It wasn’t enough that Pete lost his father but it was left to him to make the impossible decision to pull the plug. What little was left of his childhood innocence was robbed of him that day. He returned to me shattered, covered in tattoos, and a complete stranger. So I held him in my arms as tightly as I could, and we promised each other we’d start again from scratch. So we did. A month or so later, he slowly started to find his smile again, and we both found our way back to our special little routine. But fate had other plans.
It was a year of firsts. My first real boyfriend. My first job in the music business. My first orgasm. (Did you see how I just slipped that in there? Speaking of slipping things in…) One afternoon, while Pete and I were watching a Borg named Hugh find his humanity on Star Trek: The Next Generation and sexing on his mom’s lumpy, plaid couch, he started cringing and told me to get off of him. He was in an insane amount of pain. Turns out, he had a hernia, and when he went in for surgery, the doctors realized he had cancer. (Now there’s a real curse word for ya!) In that instant, two major earth-shattering events took place: 1) I was about to get a lesson in humility and bravery that would impact me for years to come, and 2) It turns out, I had a cancer-smelling vagina.
I have to admit I’m a bit hesitant to get into all the intimate details of Pete’s battle with cancer. It’s a heroic story but it is his story and not mine to tell. Plus, I’m not sure a high school senior is qualified to do anything other than mow your lawn under supervision, let alone reflect o
n something with such gravity. But it was a crucial part of my life that greatly informed the person that I am today, and not a day goes by where I don’t use it as a personal source for inner strength. Today, I have a much deeper understanding of what was happening to me at the time … and that’s a story I’d love to share.
When someone you love gets very sick it changes you. All the bullshit you thought was so critical suddenly becomes irrelevant. You develop a level of focus you never thought possible without your cousin’s Adderall. You stop measuring life by years, months, days, or even hours. It all comes down to seconds and your need to make each one of them count. At least, that’s the romantic description of the clusterfuck-bomb that was about to explode in my life. I was seventeen years old and the boy I was in love with had just been diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized into seminoma. BALL-FUCKING CATASTROFUCK!!!
“If you think the word ‘fuck’ is healing, then the word ‘fuck’ is gonna heal you.”
—Shailene Woodley
Up until that point in my life, I had not spent a great deal of time focusing on the balls as I had been distracted by their more handsome and striking companion—another hard-learned life lesson: always mind the stepchildren. But that was all about to change as the backup singers took center stage in my life like Lisa Lisa stepping aside and allowing Cult Jam to take the spotlight. Whether I liked it or not I was about to become incredibly familiar with the two veg that accompany the meat. Now, you don’t go through an experience like this without adopting a fair amount of “ball humor,” and I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to share with you some of my personal favs: bollocks, cojones, family jewels, coin purse, giggleberries, nards, plums, yam bag, and my all-time hero, deez nutz. Trust me when I tell you deez nuts will save your life some day.
Cancer is often called the C-word. I think it’s probably because it’s the cunt of all the diseases. But to me there’s another C-word that describes everyone who has ever faced this bitch with a capital C and that word is courageous. I’m not going to pretend to know the depths of the pain and self-inflicted psychological torture Pete suffered through as he faced his own mortality, but I can show you a glimpse of our amazing time together and its profound impact on my life. Quite simply, he was a boy facing invisibility who chose to fight for his life. I was the girl who had the rare privilege of being his companion on his extraordinary journey. When I look back at my time with Pete, I mostly remember his humor, affection, and above all else, his courage.
Everybody Curses, I Swear! Page 5
