Ghosts Of Notes Passed

Kells,

GOD DAMN you look good today!!! That shirt and jeans and the way your hair is w/no makeup.  When I saw you, you instantly made me hard.  Your figure and everything Just look so good today.  Your also pretty hyper too!  Yea I can’t wait until I come over your house today.  Were gonna have fun.  Remember the underwear bet this morning.  I won.  Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah.  You need to give me some Blue Jeans.  Yea You look so good.  That was pretty mean what T** said to M*** this morning.  He really doesn’t like her.  Yesterday during hacking he called her a skank whore.  He’s not nice.  I gotta go.  You look very very sexy, hot, attractive, to die for today.  I love you bunches.  I gotta go.

Love forever and ever,

****

P.S. I want you real bad

  So begins my first note from the horny high school ex.  This weekend, when describing this project and his notes to me (some of which are super gross and hard to swallow-NO PUN INTENDED) I likened him to be a mix of these three things:

1/3 Mark Wahlberg as David McCall in ‘Fear’ 

1/3 Lenny from ‘Of Mice and Men’

1/3 Leonardo DiCaprio as Arnie in ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’

Yes.  That’s him in a nutshell.  A steroidal man-child prone to boners, anger and bouts of heavy petting.  I’m going to go cringe in the corner.

Not exactly a ‘note’ per se, but i thought these were pretty funny.  Back in good ol’ confirmation class, our ‘homework’ was to write a summary of the Gospel we’d heard that morning in Sunday mass.  For those of you who’ve never set foot inside a church, or been to Catholic services, the gospel comes at the end of several readings, and enough sit-stand-kneel combinations that burns more calories than Zumba.

The Gospel is taken directly from the bible, from one of the books (of Luke, Matthew, Mark, John and my fav, Deuteronomy) and read very dramatically to the congregation by the priest.  Our priest often kissed the bible afterwards, which I totally understood because I’d kissed my poster of David Duchovny at home on occasion.

After the Gospel, the priest breaks it down in a relatable, real-timey way to his assembled flock.  You didn’t really think Jesus wants us cutting babies in half King Solomon-style?  No!  He wants us to not covet our neighbors shit.   However I have learned a few little nuggets of the ‘word’ that are pretty rad.

1. Zombies exist.  There was this man named Lazarus that died, and Jesus brought him back.  At first, people were scared of him because they were like,  ’Oh, hell no.  You were dead.  We went to your funeral and then went through your stuff.’  Lazarus just shrugged his shoulders, pointed at Jesus and said, ‘He brought me to life again, now give me back my shit.’

2. If you disobey your husband, bad shit will happen:  Sometimes my husband will say, ‘Don’t touch that…It’s hot.’  Of course, I will touch it and burn myself.   Every single time.  And don’t tell me when you’re at a restaurant and the waitress tells you not to touch the hot plate, you don’t do it too!  Because you do.  Everyone does.  Well, in the Bible, there are some pretty crazy ramifications to not listening to your man.  In one story, this dude named Lot’s wife gets turned into a pillar of salt because she looks back at her city being destroyed (it’s part of the whole Sodom and Gommorah, hellfire and brimstone attack).  She was told not to, and for disobeying, she was turned into a tasty treat for horses and dromedary.

3. If you love me, kill that person:  Sometimes to prove their love for him, God would ask people to kill someone close to them.  God asked this guy Abraham to take his favorite son Isaac up to a mountain top, kill him and BURN HIM as an offering.  Psycho Abraham made his son cut and carry up the wood like a pack mule, laid him across it and as he raised his blade, God called out to him to stop.  ’Naw, I’m just kidding Abe.’  What. The. Fuck.  

It’s fairly obvious that I sometimes paid little to no attention during the Gospels (generally I thought about boys, or how rad it would be when I could make my own decisions and NOT spend Sunday mornings and evenings at church) so my summaries are bastardized versions of what I thought I might’ve heard.  The bottom one makes me laugh out loud because, really:

WHAT ABOUT JESUS AND THE CHILDREN??

B***,

T*** ISN’T MAD AT YOU,

i promise.  Today her and C**** got into an argument in the hall.  C**** accused her of breaking up her+J***.  Did you see what she was wearing (C****)that sweater?  Can you say ‘fashion victim’?  She claims she’s cool, but in those tight-ass pants, + S*** ****’s borrowed sneakers.  Hmph!  She-is-a-loser!  D**** hates her, as do I, but T*** has resolved to be civil.  Then this accusation arises + now T***’s gotten to the boiling point.  The only other time I recall C**** talking about you was at the FFA meeting, where you sat down and said:

“Me and J*** are finished,” +she said:

“They were never started to begin with,”  she also said something about you having pimples.

W.B.    -Kell

Well she can kiss my ass!  Did you tell D**** about this?  Can I if you haven’t? please.  I’m just not gonna talk to her and if she or anyone else asks me what my prob. is I’ll just be like-Word gets around.  She was tellin’ people she went all the way wit’ J***.  Yeah in her dreams.  I think she just went for him ‘cause of me.

W/B

B****

My high school was pretty different than most, as a large majority of students were there on loan from other districts in order to attend an vocational agriculture program.  Long-story short?  My high school was a working farm.  Those who chose to come from other towns were required to have some interest in pursuing a life in the ‘Ag-Sciences’ (tractor mechanics, farming, horticulture, veterinary studies, etc.) in order to continue to attend classes there.

At the end of my seventh grade year, the parents decided their experiment in Southern Living wasn’t working out so well, so we moved back to Connecticut.  I spent my eighth grade year as the ‘new girl’ (once again) in a strict Catholic School before deciding where to go as a freshman.  My parents laid out my options:  Co-Ed Catholic School, All-Girls Catholic School(s), or NHS (the ‘farm school’ one of my elementary school chums had decided on attending).  

The idea of not having to wear a uniform or deal with weekly mass (and reconciliation) was the deciding factor.  I could have jeans, I could have boys and I could have…pigs?  I feigned enough interest in becoming a veterinarian to win acceptance into NHS and before I knew it, I was sitting front and center at an orientation.

It was at this orientation, that I met a group of girls who were the center of my social universe for the first three or four months of high school.  We had literally nothing in common besides being in the vo-ag program and FFA (Future Farmers of America-ohyesiwas).  

Before Christmas break we would all have these dramatic, blown-out fights that resulted us going our separate ways.  Ultimately it was the best thing that could happen as we all went on to find our niche within groups that really accepted us for who we were.

Now…this note?  I am going to have to issue an apology on behalf of my adult self, to ‘C’.  I had absolutely NO right to criticize anyone’s fashion choices when my freshman wardrobe was culled entirely from my father and grandfather (oversized button downs worn over baggy jeans with tight tank tops layered underneath).  Very Seattle 1993, but it was Connecticut…and this was 1996.  I don’t know what this business about ‘borrowed sneakers’ is.  Perhaps I was just jealous because my feet probably wouldn’t fit inside the boxes her shoes came in?

I realize in re-reading these notes (and more to follow) that I come across sounding like a really mean girl.  I assure you that I was not.  I was (and still am) the sort of person who will try and see the good in everyone and always try and find a reason to be friendly.  And for your information…I’m the kind of lady that doesn’t point out your pimples.  LYLAS!

Kelly,

You think I can’t be “deep”

I quote from your note

“I see I’m getting too deep for you, so I’ll stop.”  pg.1, line 23

My poem to Leonardo DiCaprio:

When you act,

You Feel.

then it is no longer acting, but real.

When acting your emotions cross the screen, into the eyes of people you’ve never seen.

People learn by seeing

someday they’ll use your emotions such as love, hate, anger and pain

continue to act, I wish you the best 

but remember these feelings are learned when expressed

(_____signed______)

I’ll re-read this (arrow to third stanza) line today when we talk on the phone,

I wrote you because you pissed and moaned and ranted & raved that I hadn’t

<3

***

The first thing that comes to mind whilst reading this is (shockingly) not related to the poem, but the fact that I inferred to a friend of mine that she wasn’t able to understand my ‘deep’ thinking.  Whoa!  I’ve only scratched the surface of the hundreds of notes I’ve got here, but a pervading similarity amongst them all is what a blunt snatchface I used to be to those I held the closest at the time.  

Now…that poem (here comes the blunt snatchface).  Holy good god, right?  Two sentences into the letter I’m thinking that I’m the meanest girl in rural Connecticut and then by the third I feel somewhat vindicated.

B*** (Secret do not tell)

Guess what happened?  J*** told our whole World Civ class that C*** was a dog + that he hated her and he also said some other cruel stuff.  Remember at my house (we were getting ready for the semi-formal) + C*** was mad at me?  Well that night she called you ‘a stupid bitch’ that’s why i was so pissed at her.

WB

Kelly

Kelly,

She called me a stupid bitch?  What else did sthat little girl say?  Thats makes me wonder.  T**, K** + her say about me.  Did she say why she said that?  I guess this means pay back.  SORRY SO SLOPPY

W/B

B***

Dude…For reals… I don’t know who I was back then, but…Girls be bitches, amiright?!

The following is a transcription of the note above, my first submission in this project.  My writing will be in Italics and the person whom I was writing back and forth with will be in bold.

_______ turned 17 yesterday.  He got his license on the 19th.  He’s such a cutie; perfect teeth, 6’ 2”, bowl cut, skater. Ugh.  He + his family watch these two little boys whose mom died last year.  He’s so great with them.  Yesterday morning he took them to Chuck E. Cheese.  Then, his mom took us all to drop them off + on the way there, the 3 year old fell asleep on me.  He just smiled.  It was so cute.

Oh thats sweet. He sounds like a great guy.  Joe is too, but I can’t get over his girly-girl voice.

Has he hit puberty yet/

Oh yeah, and he smokes everything too and that is supposed to make your voice deeper, but it doesn’t For him.

Hmm……Push past the voice. (Is it that bad? Are we talking Hanson-type?)

Not Hanson type but VERY girly I mean like I cringe everytime he speaks.  I’m thinking of getting him a roll of duct-tape for X-mas

Ha! I’m only 14.  Yet I’m a sophmore.  Funky huh?

I was a freshman in high school, awkwardly adjusting to a new school and new friends when I began taking confirmation classes.  For those of you heathens who grew up without having to haul your asses out of bed every Sunday to attend services, Confirmation is the last of the sacraments I would be able to achieve at the age of 13 (unless I wanted to join the Order or get married) and my parents were determined to make it happen.

I kicked and I screamed, not wanting to give up my Sunday nights to sit in a musty church basement while a former drill-instructor turned deacon lectured on the evils of contraception and then showed a room of adolescents photographs of partial-birth abortions.  I could be on the phone!  I could be reading!  I could be…writing notes!  Instead of all that, I drank dixie cups full of tang and rolled my eyes so hard they threatened to snap on their strings.

Then…I got kicked out.  Turns out the drill-instructor deacon didn’t like it when I posed a hypothetical question involving gang rape, his own daughter and an unwanted pregnancy.  

“Tell her to grow up and learn about her faith,” he advised my embarrassed parents as I secretly did a little happy shuffle inside.  It wasn’t long before freshman year was over and I was right back in that grody basement, now under strict orders from my parents to keep my ‘sassy mouth shut and just get that second middle name!’  Major Deacon smirked from the podium, calling on me whenever he could.

(holds up picture of aborted fetus)

“How does this make you feel, K___?”  I shrug my entire body in that way that sullen teenagers do and said:

“I dunno…hungry?”

A second call is made and I’m told that the chances of me recieving the sacrament are getting slimmer.  Mom suggests I pretend to be like Holly Hunter in ‘The Piano’ and “just shut the fuck up from now on.”  Nice Catholic mouth she has on her.

I do as she asked, after all… Partly because I do not want the shame of having to repeat another year of catechism, and partly because I have a friend in the class.  We’ve both chosen really rad Confirmation names and spend the entire time writing back and forth to one another in class about boys, Trent Reznor, clothes and how much we hate being raised Catholic.  I grind my teeth as Major Deacon proselytizes on about all the sins we’re about to commit, I roll my eyes as he whips out the horror-gore photographs, and I try not to laugh out loud when he tells us all his daughter just made the boy’s baseball team.