February 12, 2000
Gimme an X - Part One

Women need women.

This isn’t a secret. It’s not something we hold back from the menfolks, it’s something that we can’t articulate to express the magic that exists between girls. I’ve spent a great deal of time lately feeling sorry for myself, for losing that with each and every single girlfriend I’ve ever made. Reading the Ya-Ya Sisterhood has affected more than I expected it to. Everyone that has read it told me to be prepared for it.

I miss it like a lost limb.

When I was very young, it was Erica, Katie, Desiree, and I.

Later, it was Wai-Ling and Squeaky.

When in doubt of where to start, begin with the beginning;

I have diaries proclaiming myself different from the rest of the world’s population, dating somewhere near 1985. I was convinced there was something distinct about me. I had to be distinguished from the rest of the boring, non-magical populace. Did I have powers? Was I an extraordinary witch whose charms would lie dormant until the right ritual exposed them? No, but I damned sure tried everything I could just to be sure.

This tainted everything that we did as prepubescent friends. Rituals, places where the moon shone just right in the park against the backdrop of an old tree became sacred. How they put up with my mistaken spiritual meandering, I’ll never really know. They were, most likely, having a laugh at my expense behind my back when I hadn’t sucked them into my latest mystical obsession. I’d describe some of them, but they are ludicrous, each and every one. I was surrounded by Wiccan influences that praised these desperate acts. Desperate because I was always hoping for something that never happened. I’ll end this soliloquy by saying that I am just like you. No more, no less. How goddamned sad.

Erica had a lesbian mother named Terri that moved her constantly. She was the first adult that ever yelled at me with the purpose of upsetting me. Here’s where I bear a part of myself that only my husband is aware of, such a delicate layer. I’m not sure why it makes me feel so utterly open when I discuss it, because in print it carries only a quarter of the impact it had on my 9-year-old mind.
There was a movie out at the time called Sheena, Erica and her mother were going to see it once I left their house, which was in walking distance to my own. I’m sure that I invited myself –who understands the intricacies of adult human interaction before they even grow hair?— and I called my mother to ask if it was okay, she said yes, and asked Terri if my brother could go as well. He arrived shortly, and we all were goofing around and having a laugh or two, when Terri exploded on my brother and I. We had made them miss the movie.

It first time anyone every tried to make me cry on purpose. I think back now and wonder just how unhappy a woman she must have been. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been called white trash to my face. I wear it as a banner these days. It amuses me to no end. But then, I thought that I had committed some horrible act, and I was embarrassed, I wanted to die. I wanted the snot bubble in my nose to cover both nostrils and I could hold my breath and die before I had to look at my brother’s face, to walk the longest 2 blocks I had walked in my life at that point, face my parents and tell them the terrible things I had done.

This is the power that adults hold over children of that age. I thought I was wrong. I had no idea why.

I just remember walking back home with my brother, crying like I had cried before, but aching with a pain that hadn’t accompanied the tears before. I don’t know if my brother was crying, but the pain he felt was different than my new wound, see, he already knew that there were evil people in the world. He had been made to feel that way for years now, every day. If only he could have given a few words of compassion for me, but he didn’t like me very much then. I think he had already begun to hate people as a whole.

That woman, that devil bitch hag cunt whore of a woman. I would pay dearly to have ten minutes alone with her.

I’m bigger than she is now.



Katie deserves more than I can give her right now. In writing and in person. May she understand our distance, and you understand my inability to express the love that resided between us.

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