Today I nearly died. In fact, in the past week I have nearly died a dozen times.
She started school today. My little girls first day. Her hand felt so small, yet sticky as we walked from the car. Let me rewind to yesterday. I got her early in the morning. I told her repeatedly that this was her last day as a kid, that after that she would always be graded, scored, judged and measured until she was old enough to start her career or whatever she found. Its hard to remember sometimes that she is just five. I am crying as I type. We measured her height inside the pantry on the door jamb. Since jan ’05 she has grown 6 inches. I know she has grown a huge amount in the past year because its harder to pick her up. She weighs so much, not to give her a Karen Carpenter complex. I took her to get icees and pick out a project for us to do. We go to this craft store, one of those places where you buy the felt animals to glue onto sweatshirts. After much complicated, souk-like negotiations and promises of cleanup help and sweeping, we settled on a unicorn suncatcher. Man, that girl can love pink like her life depends on it. We got it home and started to paint in the blacked off areas with the glittery paint. I noticed that she loves things to be pretty, to be orderly and always glamourous. I find it amusing. I could not be more borne of chaos and mess. As we painted, I watched her, noticing her dark brown skin. Her chubby, nearly watering but twinkling brown eyes. Our arms brushed together, her bombpop-lengthed arm felt cool, but as active as every, brushing and pushing the color all over. She is obviously smaller than me, me being six four. The doctors say that she’ll be five ten. Wow. I hope its not a silly five ten. I remember this girl in sixth grade. Her name was Sarah. She was three or four inches taller than me. She had this party for her birthday- she invited our whole class. This was South Carolina advanced education. It was called a combination class. There were 30 students or so; half 5th graders and half 6th graders.
Anyhow, Sara invited the whole class. No one showed. It ended up being me, my friend Vince and her grandmother, who I think was drunk. Nevertheless, Granny managed to entertain this sad little soiree. She showed us the new Sears catalog and recited her theories about where Mork from Ork really came from (she swore he was from Michigan) Sara held back percolating tears as Vince and I tried to keep her mind off of the diss with our renditions of Kool and the Gang AND Sex Pistol songs, albeith a capella versions. Back at school, people acted like nothing happened, or they said they were busy, a few even said the date was confusing (we weren’t on an Aztec calendar?) It was funny to watch the manipulative incrowders try to console her by consoling themselves. Truth be told, Sara wasn’t the Kelly Kapowski of our little class. She was a patent wallflower. This isn’t derision. All the other girls were tiny little pinwheels. Sara was more like her party guests. We were fringe dwellers, the veritable plus ones that you see but never see. I forget why I brought this up. Um, it brings me back to the whole school thing with my daughter. I remember not being able to afford those coral blue swooshed nikes. It stunk. My used shoes from the mission never measure up to my classmates footwear. I don’t want her to care about that. This possessive lust that we are all guilty of, it bothers me. I am guilty of it. I notice it all the time. I am counting the days until I am uncool. Or maybe I already am. Kids always know before the parent.
I saw T and M’s new band. It was really wonderful and such an intimate thing to see, like watching two people make out at a movie, or stumbling upon a couple kissing in the kitchen at a dinner party. The songs are broad and melodic. They remind me of head on the door era Cure but in the direction of where there last band was heading.
I discovered this painter that I like. Her name is Audrey Kawasaki. I even emailed her. Its amazing to be able to do that, to break the wall with someone who inspires you. Google her. I remember in college, I had abused the phone in the newspaper office. I must have called everyone in NYC and tracked down the painter Jean Michel Basquiat. I wanted to talk to him, to exchange words with him. I wanted to tell him how his dumb art was smart and his influence on people in small redneck towns. I wanted to talk new wave music, no wave music and hip hop. I begged and called and left message upon message. One night, late night in the office, I took a break, and I remember it clearly, from reviewing a Buck Pets record. I picked up the phone and called one of the remaining five numbers that someone had had something intelligent about where Basquiat was or would be. (I never swallowed the notion that he wouldn’t care about a junior college newspaper writer who lived in a car and painted women he stalked.)
I think I reached a rehearsal space of his. Apparently he had a few that he worked out of and his handlers or whomever they were didn’t know where he was ever and if they did, they weren’t going to tell me.
So its late. I am super tired. The outside dark sky is starting to molt into daylight. I call one number and it rings hypnotically about 35 times. Ring. Ring. On the 38th ring I hear a crashing fumble.
“hello?”
There is a music bed underneath the hello. Sounds like Run DMC being pureed by the Clash.
“um, Hi. Jean Michel?”
“who this?”
And then I began a story about who I was and how important he was and blah blah, weren’t Suicide a great band and what about Rahmelzee…I wanted to interview him for this narrow minded but trying publication-and he interrupted.
“call me on Thursday. We can build” (or something really hip. The years erode his exact words)
“this one coming?
“Yea. Bye”
Bzzzzzz.
That was it. He never answered the phone that next Thursday and I never got him again on the phone. He died of an overdose two weeks later. Check his work out. He proves that a four year degree can be nothing more than four years of schooling in a row.
