Suffragette City.

I'd one of those bad days
Yeah, it left me a scar
One of those where the sun don't shine like she used to
I'd one of those bad dreams
Yeah, I woke up in a sweat (sweat)
And I rode into nothing or into no one

My mom probably spent more time yelling at me more than she spent time petting the cat, she liked to pretend she had some sort of authority over me, which was kind of funny.

But not really, anyway.

I remember when I first walked into the first classroom with the fluorescent lights that weren’t flickering like a dying fly.

I remember, it was a bad day. A bad day because everyone like, knew their ABC’s. But not me. How was I supposed to know that there was homework the very first before-day of school? Honestly. Like my mom ever checks the mail or goes to the Meet-the-Teacher days.

And I honestly don’t know why the teachers freaked out so much. First I like, stumble into the room, like some drunk five year old, because, hello, who ever heard of those lights ever working, anyway? Honestly. And then she’s all wooooo just because I didn’t learn up to the fifteenth letter of the alphabet.

The sun was like, shining not really. Which, being the naïve little five year old that I was wearing too big coveralls, I thought that it must have been some kind of death warning. Like that death omen from Harry Potter. For sure it meant that I would get paint on my coveralls.

At such a ripe age, would I have been able to figure out that maybe, just maybe, there was something a teeny bit more severe than some cheap-o water paint on my brand-smackin’-new ‘alls?

No, of course not.

My mom - before she totally fell of her rocker – told me about that sailor’s warning thingers, I remember just looking at her, and saying something like, ‘how would the sailors know that I seen a pink sky? Are they gunna get paint all’ver their covers?’

I might have well have just said, ‘why yes, I am not at the proper age to speak proper sentences’, because honestly.

But my mom just patted my arm, as if saying there’s nothing we can do with you know, just hope you get through the world with only a few suicide attempts.

I remember her guiding me through the hall – mind you, the lights were about as painful as that one dude from Halloween slamming your head against brick wall – I cowered behind her grey sweats, hoping to God the teacher mistook me for the parent.

For all my maturity had such a newly-born age was enough to fit a twelve year old, dare I say it.

Needless to say, I was sweating that morning, what with the foreseeable paint incident, not knowing the alphabet and the insanely-perfectly-working lights, whoa mama.

So lay me down with a ghost
'Cuz anything's better than alone
And how I do say what's over
Tell me how do I live on my own

Sometimes I’d just feel like a ghost, you know? The kind that nobody realized was there, and they’d just walk right through you. But I didn’t give off that daft cold. I was a warm ghost. My friends liked to call me Casper.

But that’s probably because I burn really easily, and I’m as white as French-white nail polish.

My mom always told me to stop being such a ghost, yell at the person for getting paint all over my coveralls – it did happen – with the plastic paint brush – guess what colour? Yellow – she always told me to stand up for my Charter of Rights and Freedoms! But I never did. I was never a real go-getter.

I met Connor through being Casper, though. I remember him, because he was the first to get yellow paint all over my new coveralls. And he didn’t say sorry.

I also remember him, because I avenged myself by pushing him out of the treebox and onto the sandy oasis beneath us. He didn’t tell on me, though.

So I invited him to my birthday. My mom had the wedding invitations all planned out. But also, Angela was in our class. He had the wedding invitations all planned out for himself and her. So that was bust. Mom was disappointed. I, for one, was not. Still sore from the paint incident.

But Connor was my some-what friend, he played Barbie’s with me sometimes, so that was basically aces. I also remember when he left, he went to like, somewhere over there in England. He said maybe he’d come back. That was 2001.

It was 2009.

So I was basically left to fend for myself, with my irrational fear of yellow, and my inability to stand near a light, my father hadn’t yet went down into the ground, so my disgust for yellow was just because it really did clash with my coveralls.

So there I was that year just when Connor left, sitting around with a small sandwich – crust cut off – staring at the crippled lettuce.

How very social of me.

Woke up in a church
Some guy feeling in on life
I said, "Hey."
"We'll be bored if it's all that simple."
See I'd marry the search
Wedding bells if the search had a soul
But today, I know that it's not that simple

About a week after Connor had left, my mom dragged me to church. I almost cried I was so bored. I remember the over-indulgent preacher saying that we all had whims, and that we all did what we wanted, whether it was appropriate or not. I remember, I remember it made sense. Because at the tender age of like, eight, I did everything that I wanted to do, I never really listened to anyone.

I then moved onto more simpler things, such as weddings. I pictured my wedding with Connor. It was strange, but I decided then, in those hard little pews with juice boxes stuffed in the bible holders, that my wedding would look exactly like that.

A question for you:
Did you really believe in me or was I
Just a blanket for you to hold on to?
See, I'm all outta words
Should I call it a night?
One of those where the moon don't shine like she used to

Even if it was going to be stuttery and filled with poeple I didn’t know, it would be exactly like that. When I told my mom all this, she didn’t believe me, I realize that now.

All she would say was, ‘yes, dear. That sounds like a marvelous idea.’ And she kept asking me who the groom was going to be. As if that was some big, necessary detail.

At first I had thought she asked who the broom was going to be, and I so smartly responded with, ‘you mean the thing that we clean up the kitty-litter with?’

Mom found that amusing for some odd reason.