For chris and bob

This isn’t about sex so I totally understand if you don’t read it. There are a few good men who want to know who I am. I tried to reply to a blog comment wolfrider left me. The system is malfunctioning and it won’t let me respond. We have been chatting about the fact that some people think I have no chance to make it as an artist. They don’t know my parents. I discussed the fact that if I make it big time I will still no my roots and my origins.

I have to start at the very beginning. My mother comes from a strange family. My father comes from a strange family. It all started in Jacksonville Florida when the lady I called great grandma fell in love with a beautiful little girl. She couldn’t have c***dren. Her husband owned part of an original florida homestead. In fact they owned most of the town before it had a name. Before plant city was developed the area was farm land called knight’s station. From the very beginning the people from my town knew the soil and weather conditions were perfect for growing strawberries. We are still the winter strawberry capital of the world. The lady I called great grandma was named myrtis hawthorne. They lived in a mansion equipped with slave quarters.

There is no record of my grandfather’s adoption. Many people have tried to research the subject. What most likely happened was that my grandfather and his little sister Martha were street orphans. Things might have been different for my family if my great grandparents used an official adoption agency. The only thing my grandfather could say about his past was remembering the ship from Scotland that brought him to America. My biological great grandmother somehow got herself and her two small c***dren to America. When she arrived she was quickly put into an insane asylum. My biological great grandmother is the source of mental illness within my family. My grandfather always knew he was adopted just for the sake of his sister. The hawthorne’s picked two beautiful c***dren to raise. My grandfather was destined to be a very sick man. His problems were heightened by two major events.

Playing far from home his little sister was bitten from a rattlesnake. It was early in the development of anti-venom. Back then they gave c***dren doses based on their size and not the size of the snake. She got bit by one big motherfucking rattler and she died. Immediately my great grandma did something strange and cruel. She went to an adoption agency and picked out another little blonde girl and named her Martha. You should never make a boy lose his biological sister and replace her and rename her. Right after that loss something worse happened. My grandfather watched in horror as a part of his adopted father’s clothing got caught in the tractor. He got pulled under and died mangled to pieces.

I would be a very wealthy woman if that accident never happened. My Great Grandfather’s brother was evil. Because there were no adoption papers to prove my grandfather was his son he seized the mansion and most the land. That is how my great grandmother ended up living in the slave quarters and the land she was allotted has a swamp and can’t grow shit. My grandfather never recovered from owning most the town and living in a mansion. The uncle is responsible for parceling out all the good farm land to our neighbors who made millions growing strawberries. I can proudly say the woman that was my adopted great grandmother is in every single history book about plant city. You can’t tell the story of this town without her. She was the first teacher in a one room school house before our town had a name.

People rarely realize what a luxury it used to be to send your c***dren to school. Back then c***dren worked the field as soon as they could walk. It was such a big deal it was called strawberry school. It was only in session when strawberry season ended. My great grandmother was a teacher for over forty years. She truly taught this town how to read. Just so you can grasp how long she was a teacher she taught my mother how to read teaching first grade. The first church in our town was Methodist. She taught Sunday school and played the organ. Even if she wasn’t responsible for teaching this community about god and reading she would still be in history books. The great depression struck our community hard. My great grandmother is famous for teaching a lot of hungry people how to can damn near anything. We have a shit load of cows and vegetables. Proper canning techniques saved lives. I just knew her as great grandma. She lived to be in her mid-nineties and she never went senile. She was as sweet as sugar and all of us k**s adored her and that slave house. When she died the church was standing room only. People truly crammed each pew and stood against walls to honor her.

However, her son was an evil man and everyone knew it. My mom had a rough c***dhood. Our land was only good for cows and my grandfather went to work for the railroad. My mom was a normal little girl and her sister was extremely anorexic. My grandmother was calling my mom fat before she knew her damn name. Just like me my mother hit high school and made an impact. My uncle and my aunt were both extremely popular. My uncle did become a multi-millionaire. He was running things in high school as class president. My aunt was always considered one of the most beautiful girls in the whole town. My mom was an underdog. She was also freaky smart and at the top of her class. Her first boyfriend was the quarterback of the football team. They had one date she wouldn’t fuck him. He blasted the whole school declaring he got her virginity and what a slut she was.

It was absolutely against the rules for me to date jocks. She also hated band so that was off-limits too. I think she decided to have fun with life once her reputation was tainted. I just told this story to my new friend bob. You might enjoy it as well. If you go back in time and remember the presidential election in 2000 that put bush in office this story will make you smile. One man made it possible. No one saw it coming. Everybody knew florida would decide the election. The only way to swing this state republican involves a bribe to the supervisor of elections. Most people think that is such a minor political position. Not in Florida. His name is buddy Johnson. Who knows how he got into politics and landed the position to control the election? You had to live in florida and try to vote that year in order to swear on the bible buddy Johnson took a bribe to get bush elected.

None of the motherfucking machines worked. I couldn’t vote after waiting for hours. The electricity kept going off. My mom just told me my whole damn family worked for that election. They loved buddy Johnson for some reason he paid them early. Hell, my grandmother would stick a screwdriver in a ballot machine for a thousand bucks. I’m sure there were lots of little old ladies with screwdrivers laughing there ass off that day. News reports kept finding boxes of ballots in the trash. It was documented that absentee votes didn’t get calculated. We have enough senior citizens who are proud to be democrats yet unable to go to a voting booth to swing our state republican. To make it official buddy Johnson did get sued for spending money meant to upgrade the voting system to fund his campaign for re-election. It truly came down to less than one hundred votes. I was one of them. After waiting all damn afternoon I gave up and didn’t vote.

My mom still yells at me. I swear once again on pictures of baby jesus. If you live in florida you get your sorry ass to the precinct and vote. I was in a state of sheer devastation at my uncle’s funeral. I have horror stories of the way he was a monster. Then I have stories of him as the best man ever in my life. He was a self-made man. He became one of the top financial consultants in the world. I can’t fathom his wealth. I just know about his brain. It is just like mine. Enhanced and flawed beyond comprehension. Before he died I was his constant companion. I was paid to be his maid. He couldn’t do things like laundry. I have so many stories about his three story mansion. He made his fortune and came back to plant city. He bought near every building in the historic district and renovated it.

He lost his fortune when the economy collapsed. He was in such a state of depression it hurt to look at him. His daughter is one of my mortal enemies. He called me when he shit the bed and needed his sheets changed. He talked for hours about his love of Tolkien. His daughter wouldn’t even splurge for a service at a funeral home. We all gathered at the family cemetery. My mom had a mental breakdown. She buried her sister after her suicide. She couldn’t bury her brother after his suicide. She would not leave the bed to go to his funeral. I was in shock. I had to go alone and apologize for my mother’s absence. It was glorious. I was in the front row next to my grandma. A man walked up and said ‘hi mrs. Hawthorne, I’m buddy Johnson. Where is Elaine?’

My poor mom got screwed with the first name shirley. Early in life she forced everyone to use her middle name Elaine. You have no idea how much we bitched about buddy Johnson putting bush in the white house. In many ways I think he destroyed the whole damn country. I can’t control what comes out of my mouth sometimes. The urge to call him the biggest cocksucker since hitler was so strong. He was in awe of me the second he saw me. I did look hot that day in a sexy red dress, black panties and red sex kitten heels. My mom once told me buddy Johnson chased her and it was funny. He didn’t know my uncle but he showed up at his funeral to see my mother. He started telling me stories about her. He said he never met a woman with a better sense of humor. He talked about how beautiful she was. He talked about how smart she was. He told me know woman could compare. I was speechless.

At the same time I am her daughter. I can honestly say I busted out with stories about my mother that had him laughing his ass off. He couldn’t believe I was thirty two. He just kept saying you look just like your mother did in high school. I seduced that cocksucker. My grandma wasn’t paying attention. It was like finally getting to vote back in 2000. He is still a wealthy and powerful man. After all he was bribed with a fortune to make little old ladies put screwdrivers in the ballot machines. Victory was the bulge in his pants. I kept the stories flowing. He begged for my number. I didn’t have a cell phone. He begged to take me to dinner. I played along and said I would love that. He wouldn’t let go of my hand. I realized my mother leaves an impression like few women can dream of. We had to stop flirting when the service began. I lost the urge to weep. I just wanted to giggle.

Before I get back to the story let me tell you more about buddy Johnson. He used my grandma to get her number. My mom has low self-esteem because she thinks she is fat. She still looks good. She made him ask more than once before she agreed to meet him. He invited her to longhorn steakhouse. Like any woman my mother expected to eat. The cocksucker said let’s just have a drink and took her to the bar. She was pissed. It got better. He actually asked the bartender how much a margarita cost. My mom was so embarrassed. We have never been super rich but we always have enough money for a fucking margarita. She tormented him. She bragged about being a democrat. He asked her what she thought of Obamacare? She got a shit eating grin on her face and announced. ‘I’m on it. I love it. It saves me a fortune.’ She said the look on his face was priceless.

He bragged about trying to make his daughter a country music star. She was brutal. She taunted him that would be expensive. She laughed and said ‘I hope she has a back-up plan. There are a shitload of girls trying to be taylor swift.’ Then he made a huge mistake. He asked for the bill and said ‘I guess I can pay for your drink.’ I just talked with her about that moment. My uncle david made millions being able to give people this look that made them want to die. My mom has the same gift. I also have that gift. If a ball sack can suddenly rise back up into a man’s pelvis she made it happen. Like she was talking to a turd she said ‘Buddy I can always pay for my motherfucking drink. Save your money.’ He was humiliated. He tried to insist on paying. She ignored him and told the bartender to separate the check. She made him squirm feeling like he had no worth. She pulled out a twenty and put it on the table. She smiled at him and said ‘It was great seeing you buddy’ and wouldn’t let him walk her to her car.

In high school he was from the wealthiest family in town. I asked her why she chose my dad. She simply says ‘I don’t date dorks. I only date bad boys.’ That’s how my momma raised me. Now, it is time to talk about where my father came from. No two people could ever be such a match. This is a small town. My momma was a hawthorne. My father’s family was unrelated but also named hawthorne. My whole life I had to explain my parents weren’t i****tuous. It’s just irony. My great grandfather’s name was George Washington hawthorne. I can never remember my great grandmother’s name. Everyone just called her granny. My earliest memory is her funeral. I wasn’t allowed to go. I thought of it as some kind of parade and I was excluded. Granny was not your average woman. I told you both sides of my family were fucked up. One great grandma was Mrs. Hawthorne and a pillar of the community. My other great grandma was Mrs. Hawthorne and she was the total opposite. Unlike the woman who couldn’t have c***dren my granny had no ability to stop having c***dren.

She popped out twelve and it is sheer luck she didn’t have twenty. That’s what makes her so much fun. She married George Washington right after he got done fighting in WW1. She was probably pregnant the night of her wedding when she was eighteen or younger. My great grandfather fell in love with a name when he was in Europe. My grandma was the oldest of twelve siblings and she was named Aredelsia. Everyone calls her delsey. Nine months later her sister was born and they named her Artemissia. Everyone calls her missy. I don’t know the order. Fuck, I don’t know all the names. To explain the name situation all I can say is granny stopped naming her c***dren and let her other k**s do it for her. You’re going to laugh. These are the names I remember. Fronie, Nonie, Donie, Floyd, Lolyd, Coyd, Homer, Comer, Myrtle and Ronnie. Granny’s youngest boy is Ronnie. He is actually younger than my dad.

His daughter Ashley is the only damn family member I count. We are like two peas in a pod. She is much younger than me and we ran into each other at a party. She was like ‘hey cousin.’ I was like ‘hey little cousin.’ We have been in touch since that night. Damn, do we have fun talking about our fucked up family. Even with a huge age gap I accidentally dated the man who betrayed her, knocked her up and insisted she abort. We both have issues and reputations. She is also bi-polar which explains my double dose of fucked up. We both get told we are just like granny but we can’t have k**s. Granny had issues. She hated motherhood. Her oldest daughter was my grandma. She was in charge of motherhood. Granny was always barefoot, pregnant, working in the field and spitting tobacco. You couldn’t get her in the house unless it was for fucking.

What people laugh about the most when they remember granny is that she pissed outside in the yard standing straight up like a man. If she was in the field she just pissed right in front of you with no squatting whatsoever. Rumor has it she had such good kegal muscles she could stop midstream just like a man. Me and Ashley discuss the fact we can both do the same damn thing. Since we rarely wear dresses it doesn’t happen often. Yet we’ve both done it. My grandma was a beautiful woman. I can’t remember what town in Georgia she was living. One day my grandpa was riding his horse and passed her porch. It was love at first sight. They got married and a lot of those siblings thought of him as a father. He was the man who bought a parcel of land in plant city with the plan to grow strawberries.

I truly am a strawberry baby. The hawthorne clan was unique. They didn’t split up. They were all deeply devoted to the land. Those motherfuckers have serious longevity. My grandma is in her late nineties and she is amazing. In my youth she would freak me out with her memory skills. She knew how to hoard and save money. My father’s parents are really good people. My grandma never stopped raising babies. She is a bit senile now. She is so fragile. Yet she endures. My grandpa died 14 years ago. It has been a heartbreaking journey for us both. Until about a year ago she would visit. I call her maim ma. My grandpa was Pap pah. Every visit we did the same ritual. I spoiled her rotten. No one on earth loves to shop more than maim ma. She doesn’t want a few nice things. She wants a lot of cheap shit. I love her for that. She has a serious addiction to junk food. Sometimes I think the only thing keeping her alive are artificial preservatives.

I would take her to the dollar tree and let her buy every goddamn thing she wanted. Senility was kicking in and she worked her whole life to feed so many people. That damn woman could pick out forty dollars in snacks and plastic flowers. Her idea of heaven is the artificial flower section of the dollar tree. It could take her one hour to pick the ten bouquets to go on my grandpa’s grave. It has been so ritualistic for us both. Over f******n years we have bought a lot of tacky flowers. I miss our routine. After our splurge at the dollar tree we drove to the cemetery that side of the family uses. For me it is a happy place. It is very uniform. Each grave has a simple name plate and a vase for flowers. We remove my grandpa’s old flowers and put them on her sibling’s graves. Then we jam so many damn flowers in that vase it looks ridiculous.

Each year has gotten more emotional. We can’t really talk. She only says ‘I miss him more and more each day.’ Her sorrow didn’t decrease with time. It increased. I think she knew it was her last time to see his grave the last time she visited. Her headstone already has her name on it. She could only say ‘I can’t wait to be there.’ She asked me if I would keep bringing flowers. I bawled like a baby and told her she would always have pretty flowers as long as I’m alive. She seemed content. I joke about it a lot. I have this horrible habit. It is tough shit working a job or going to school when a depression hits. She lives three hours away. I quit counting how many times I’ve faked her death. Fuck, the words ‘my grandma just died’ have gotten me out of so many bad situations. No one in my life will take me seriously when it actually happens. I have killed her at all of my jobs, for social events and once in nursing school. I’m a good actress and I rarely need to prove it occurred. When I do it’s as easy as picking out a random obituary from the newspaper.

She wants to be with my grandpa and my dad. You will never meet another woman so ready to die. She is tired now. My grandpa was always in motion. After they moved to plant city he made a radical decision. It’s the only reason my parents didn’t fall in love sooner. Around my father’s freshman year in high school they moved to St. Croix. My father’s high school year book from that time in St. Croix is one of my prize possessions. He is the only white k** in the book. It was the sixties in the middle of the black pride movement and social reforms for integrating schools. Most american’s saw black k**s abused. My dad went through the opposite situation. Fuck yes as the only white boy he got his ass beat. My mom talks about it sometimes. His only option was to take a beating and damn near shake a black man’s hand. That is how my dad became ‘a bad boy.’ He also had a wicked sense of humor. He loved pot. He fit in well with the island life style. In many ways he became black without his skin changing color. He learned slang. He knew better than to talk to black females.

He never really left St. Croix. It was always his dream to go back. Half-way through his junior year of high school the family moved back to plant city. He wasn’t like the redneck farmers from this town. He also had enough cousins to party with around the clock. k**s in high school went to social functions at the recreation center. My dad was ‘new’ in town even though he went to elementary school here. My mom’s best friend was dating his cousin and she sort of set my parents up to meet one night. I don’t even know if he introduced himself to my mom. The first thing he said to her was ‘hold my beer I’ve got to piss.’ Buddy Johnson lost his chance with that phrase. It was love. There first real date was a family gathering. Some things my mother holds sacred. She was really close to her grandpa. He loved television and fast cars.

She saw George Washington hawthorne haul ass out of the drive-way burning rubber and she knew she would marry my dad. Everyone loved my mother right away. Maybe because she was a hawthorne too. My mom was fascinated that year when schools were finally integrated. She loves to talk about it. Her favorite subject is how fucking cool the shoes black men wore compared to white k**s. She loved the juxtaposition. She loved that black k**s showed up dressed to kill. They were way ahead of fashion trends and so was my dad. This town was stuck in the fifties when my parents were in the sixties hard. It is still a huge issue in my town. Racial inequality has flourished. She talks about it a lot. Her high school is where I went to eighth grade. It is a cool freaky old two story structure. Racist rednecks rebelled against integration. Black boys got tossed over that balcony all the damn time. It is no small drop.

Black boys learned to move fast. Having good sneakers is important. It still is. When I hung out with my crew of black boys shoes were a big deal. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to grasp the concept. Black people had few employment opportunities. But people love d**gs. If you were really in the ghetto in my town then you moved weight while you were still a juvenile. It’s true that cops target groups of black people trying to stop d**gs. Pooh bear lived through it. If you want to know who is carrying weight you watch the little boys. Grown men do hard time. A little k** gets a slap on the wrist. He moves fast. You put him in the best damn shoes money can buy. You make him hold the pound at all times. Cops learn and start focusing on the little boys because the men are clean.

Pooh bear grew up right down the road from me. It’s d**g central. Little boys have to know when a cop starts looking at them when they break and haul ass. It’s that moment when you better fucking run because your family needs to eat. A cop can’t chase down a fast black boy if he is in good sneakers. Young black boys learn to run, stash the weight and recover it when the cops leave. One of my best nights with pooh bear we talked about running. He was an expert at outrunning the police. We were drinking bourbon. I told him ‘I can fucking run motherfucker.’ He laughed at me and said no white girl can run like a black boy. He didn’t know about my c***dhood. He remembered the dream house I grew up in. He didn’t know that in order to escape getting my ass beat I had to learn how to bust out the door and run through a damn cow pasture. Some things I do well. Running is one of those things. He dismissed me.

I told him let’s race motherfucker. I told him to take off his damn sneakers and race me barefoot. I hadn’t done it in years. It was our best moment together. We went to the road. The memory is so clear. I can almost feel my bare feet slapping against pavement. We were dead equal and trust me he was not going easy on me. The moment he got far enough in front of me he got cocky enough to try and turn around and taunt me. I had just accelerated to catch him. He tripped and hit the pavement hard. I was right on top of him busting my ass into the pavement. We both had to lay there laughing and catching our breath in the middle of the road. Of course when I fell over him my foot slammed into his balls. I have a bad habit of hurting balls.

Back to the story, my mom was at the forefront of civil rights. One day in the library she started talking to a black boy. That was already enough to get him hurt. He fucked up when he followed her outside and casually put an arm around her. Her brothers were super racist. Both of them were integral parts of major race riots. They nearly beat that poor boy to death while my mom screamed in horror. My parents were a perfect match in this racist town. My dad was more comfortable around black people than white people. My mom loved his devotion to equal rights. He was the beatnik hippie she needed. She would never date most of the bigots in this town. She also loved to party. One of her favorite memories was when she had a sleepover at my great grandma’s house for her birthday.

She won’t tell me what the hell they created but she called it ‘the psychedelic booze cake.’ That night my great grandma let them party hard. They got tore up and used the phone to make prank calls that made legend. My parents were a huge part of the town’s secret party life. Her best friend ended up my home room teacher one year. In the sixties her house was the place to be. My mom simply refers to them as orgies. Trust me buddy Johnson missed the invite to the orgies. My parents were inseparable. They faced a dilemma together. My father was so against the Vietnam war it is unbelievable. He abhorred the military. It didn’t matter. He was about to turn eighteen and he was most likely going to be drafted.

He didn’t have money for college. My mom was smart. She sat his ass down at a typewriter and trained him damn good. They were racing time. Before her senior prom my mom got married. It was a simple service in my great aunt’s living room. They both look so damn cute. My mom revolted against a wedding dress. She bought a tight white short dress with no embellishments. Aunt jonell was so cute. She traumatized my mother and sent uncle terry to the store to get her a douchbag. I guarantee my mom was no virgin. Nonetheless she endured a fifties style lecture about how a proper lady douches after intercourse. Their honeymoon was in a cheap hotel called ‘the tiger villa.’ She even had her school books with her to study for an exam. The tiger villa was special for my family. My mom worked so hard sometimes she forgot the basics. Remembering to pay the electric bill was not her specialty. It happened more than once. The electricity got turned off. My dad pitched a fit and took us to the tiger villa for the night.

On his eighteenth birthday my dad joined the military. My uncle the millionaire went at the same time. They were in boot camp together. He developed an intense jealousy of my father. My uncle was truly a brilliant man. The military would not even send him to Vietnam. He ended up doing diplomatic things in France. My dad went to the jungle and he sort of never came back. I don’t know what illness my uncle caught. It’s too late at night to ask my mother. He probably would’ve ended up a major component of the military but he got discharged. Believe it or not he was resentful he didn’t get the full Vietnam experience. He envied what my father went through. Because he could type so well my dad had it made. I have pictures of him getting high in some shack with walls covered in playboy centerfolds. He never touched a gun. He had a few times when he could hear combat.

He sent my mom the cutest cards with simple love messages. My mom went to work with my aunt in tampa. They shopped. She was no angel. There were probably a few bad boys to play with. My dad got shipped to Virginia and my moved to be with him. He brought two things home from Vietnam. I can’t explain them. He bought a very old artifact. It is a strange intricately carved wooden bell. It was his prize possession. He really was cruel. I told you he didn’t love me. He made me pay him a lot of money to keep that bell. He wanted to give it to a d**ggie friend. I have no idea why he bought a velvet picture of jesus. He was not religious. He didn’t like my mom’s father. Yet he gave him the velvet jesus. On our family land there is a picnic building with jesus slowly rotting almost like an act of blasphemy. In Virginia my father found his prize possession. I’m sure it was at some strange flea market. It is a huge part of my life.

My dad was about to become an artist. His inspiration was a highly unique and intriguing statue of Buddha. If my house caught on fire I would think of my Buddha before my dog. It means that much to me. In order to keep it in my life I paid my dad five hundred dollars and begged for him to let me have it. Most k**s don’t have to dish out a grand to keep two sacred possessions when their father dies. It was worth the money. Buddha explains everything. A lot of people don’t realize that men like my dad had a hard time getting a job after Vietnam. College k**s spit on veterans and called them baby killers. My dad learned woodworking from his father. He truly was a master craftsman. For a long time he worked for a company making elegant yachts. My mom spent a long time working for different newspapers. My gift with words was inherited.

Nobody understood why my mom didn’t start making babies. My parents were really off-kilter. My mom’s best friend dealt acid. My mother was the queen of acid. I bitched at her this morning for not learning how to make it. It started when she asked me to go to mcdonalds. After she completed her order she told me to pick her up some crack or ecstasy. I love her so much. I told her ‘mom I tried ecstasy once. We don’t have enough serotonin in our brain for it to work. It truly does nothing.’ She swears up and down she never cared for pot. It’s strange because some people tell me she was a notorious pot head. I told her when I went to the gas station I would try to score us weed and force her to enjoy it. She looked like I suggested forcing her to eat shit. Plus, she always throws my pot away when she finds it. I haven’t had pot in almost a year. It was hilarious.

I just bought two hundred dollars worth of mushrooms. I had it hidden a very special blue suitcase with my pot pipe. My mom loves to burn shit. She told me she found my weed and burned it. I was confused. She can be very naïve. She looked at that huge bag of mushrooms and assumed it was pot. I decided it was not a good idea to tell her she burned mushrooms instead. Burning the whole suitcase was a malevolent act. She has mad skills. I bitched her out for not mastering the art of producing acid. She got super hooked on breaking bad. She is convinced we could run a great meth lab. Watching that show reminded her of her past. My dad learned how to do something very special. He learned how to make molds. Buddha was the beginning. It all started with one unique statue. I don’t know the proper technique.

My dad learned how to carve and create sculptures. Then he produced a mold for them made out of resin and fiberglass. My mom was 26 when she broke down and decided to have a baby. In a lot of ways she wanted to end the pity party notion she was barren. It was a nightmare for her. Her body revolted against pregnancy and she was on bed rest the entire time. My granny could squat out an infant and be back in the field the next day. Not my mother. She can describe the agony of labor in ways that prevent teen pregnancy. She is mystified why both times she had an epidural the only thing that happened was the inability to feel one foot. She talks about it openly. She was a firm believer in maternal instinct. She thought she would see her baby and feel total joy and happiness. She didn’t feel shit. She just saw this crying thing she didn’t understand. My dad was the one who fell in love. Suddenly he had a son and he was on top of the world.

No c***d could’ve been more pampered than my brother. My aunt jonell was so happy she bought our land. My parents didn’t buy a house like a normal couple. They bought a barn to turn into a shop. They bought the shittiest trailer in the universe and stuck it in front of the shop. Like I mentioned it all started with Buddha. I don’t even thing they planned to do it. They created a statuary empire. That is the reason it is pretty fucking stupid to underestimate my artistic capabilities. They functioned as a pair. It would never have happened without my dad’s ability to carve and create molds. He was color blind. It would never have happened without my mother’s ability to paint. This is when I wish I had a camera. In my yard are some of the most beautiful creations I have ever seen.

My mom has no concept of why a woman would choose to have more than one c***d. She refers to me as a complete mystery. I’m the best accident she ever had. I’m the mistake she doesn’t regret. I promise you my mother was religious about taking her birth control pill. I was on it a long time. I never skipped a damn day. I am a malfunction. I am a bad batch of pills. I am the one percent chance to conceive. I ask her why she didn’t get an abortion. She doesn’t really have an answer. Her sister had six. After she had one c***d an abortion was essential. It was probably a financial issue. She was probably pretty far along. I was the worst possible scenario. First of all I was supposed to be a boy. Labor was so intense my mom had a near death experience. She can describe floating above her body and she almost didn’t survive. I was born with the cord wrapped around my neck.

Then I was the world’s worst baby. I had severe colic. There was no way to stop me from crying. I had to be held at all times. My mom had to learn how to do everything in life while holding a baby. My aunt jonell took control of the situation. She couldn’t have c***dren. First she raised my mother and my aunt. Then she raised their three c***dren. It was a freaky c***dhood. I have nearly no early memories of my parents. I only remember aunt jonell. My mom won’t let me live it down to this day. I even have a picture of it happening. When my mom picked me up from aunt jonell’s house I went absolutely hysterical crying and screaming nonell over and over. My early memories are traumatic. There was a giant hole in the floor of our tiny trailer right by the toilet. My mom had to potty train me hovering over a hole.

I loathe my parents for one huge mistake. I left the cradle and shared a room with my brother. We had bunk beds. Even though he was four years older than me as a toddler I had the top bunk. It was his room and I was an inconvenience. To make it worse he was afraid of the dark. I was forced to sleep with a light bulb so damn close to my head it isn’t funny. Sibling rivalry began when I could reach the light switch. My brother learned one easy trick to control me. At some point I got burned and learned the word ‘hot.’ It must have been bad because as a small c***d he could convince me all his toys were hot and I didn’t touch them. However, I can’t complain much about any aspect of my c***dhood. My parents never stopped working. Running a statuary is no joke. My dad thrived making fountains. He also carved your standard tacky lawn art. It was the eighties. Some of the shit he had to create was pretty tacky but people loved it.

My mom doesn’t realize how talented she is. Her skill to properly paint intricate features was monumental. My dad was fascinated by birds. He also adored mushrooms. I didn’t need every toy on the shelf. I needed a steady supply of birds and mushrooms. My parents were good to me. Even though I was too young to do good work I had a massive paint collection. I mimicked my mother who was always painting something. I was obsessed with learning how to shade things properly. I saw what she did and became determined to do it too. As a perfectionist I had a never ending supply of things to paint and toss due to imperfection. Buddha was so confusing to me. My dad made epic resin Buddha statues in gorgeous colors. I could never understand why my dad kept making fat men instead of birds.

One of my favorite c***dhood memories was his masterpiece. In some ways I think he created them just for me. Even when they closed the statuary they remained on display in his shop. I know it sounds stupid. He carved snow white and the seven dwarves. My dad was a super hoarder. My mom allowed it. He bought an empty semi-trailer and filled it with shit. One of the best days of my life is when he finally unpacked the trailer for a yard sale. I had no clue what he was hoarding in there. I can’t explain why he had some of the shit he did. I swear I came in my panties when I found these huge boxes of my grandma’s old clothes. She truly worked at a polyester factory. I had outfits to die for. I have her body so they fit me to perfection. I was way ahead of my time. I was wearing outrageous patterned bell bottoms on a regular basis. But the greatest treasure he unpacked was snow white and all those damn dwarves.

I was a teenager and I forgot how epic they were. No wonder they fascinated me as a c***d. I am a firm believer that no statue should be painted. Everything in my yard is white. There was a huge debate over those statues. I had to make artistic decisions. There is only so much room in my house to put cool shit. All those damn dwarves would’ve taken up space and cramped my style. I grew up. The dwarves were just too much. They went to a good place. This lady fell madly in love with those dwarves and snow white. It was like our yard sale was better than Disney world. I think my dad almost cried. He didn’t want to let them go. We were shit ass broke. When he told her two hundred dollars I thought he was a lunatic. She thought she won the lotto. She went to an ATM and was back at our house in ten minutes. Those statues were special. They weren’t designed to endure a yard. They belonged on a shelf. It was hard to watch her drive away. If I wasn’t high on polyester I would’ve pitched a fit. My parents got out of the statuary business.

They moved on to bigger things. It may sound stupid. It was monumental. My dad made molds for gorgeous lamp posts. His design was flawless and they are all over florida. I don’t know how they pulled it off. Two people shouldn’t be able to do it. That’s why it is stupid to dismiss my potential. My parents would get orders for entire subdivisions. We used to have one cow in our pasture. I loved that motherfucking bovine. My parents forced me to eat her. My brother had a field day when he broke the news I was eating my own cow. I probably puked. It didn’t matter. We needed the cow pasture for row after row of cement lamp posts. That is when memories of my mom come filtering in. I can still see her sitting in the pasture sanding and patching cement. I was put to work before five. I loved it. I could happily sand posts with my momma. I can still see her little container of putty.

It’s a huge issue. When she became a nurse to get a job she had to pass a background check. It is nearly impossible because she truly has no fingerprints. She would get hired and wait months for clearance. She spent hours in places with people trying to pull prints. I get sad when I think about it. When she first became a nurse the background check was not so intense. She was able to work at hospitals. Now that is not an option. For so long she has been forced into nursing homes. A lot of times she gets hired and fights for clearance. Before her identity is confirmed another person is hired. If she had fingerprints we wouldn’t be so screwed.

Each globe for a lamp post involved fiberglass. A lot of people have no clue what that is. It’s torture to work with. It truly is tiny shards of glass in your flesh. It will remove your fingerprints. Each globe had eight facets of glass. My official job was to remove the sticker from glass. My mom wanted out of that trailer and she made it happen with blood, sweat and tears. I watched her do things that hurt me to see. Her hands were bloody and blistered and she had to remove the fiberglass. We always had giant barrels of acetone. It is a wicked sensation to put your bloody hands into the freezing cold pump of acetone.

My parents reached the level of success to require employees. A friend asked me if I was concerned that he did jail time. There has never been a point in my life that didn’t involve people with felony records. My parents only hired felons. The work was too damn hard for a person with a clean record to endure. My world was dangerous. As soon as meth was available my dad needed it and so did his employees. My mom talks about it. She refused to raise c***dren and have a d**g problem. She never touched the shit. She worked just as hard as the men on meth. In a lot of ways she worked harder. One day my parents had a life changing opportunity. It seems like such a fluke accident. A man came into their statuary and recognized their talent. He was looking for someone like my parents. He was a bigwig for Fleetwood mac. They make more trailers than you could ever imagine. When the eighties hit there was a change in the standard design. He asked my parents if they could learn how to make artificial marble. He needed windowsills.

My mom saw the opportunity of a lifetime. My dad wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t make it happen. There is a reason why my mom can correlate her life to a meth lab. My dad had sheer talent. That was the best thing about him. You could show him how to do something one time and he could repeat it. It took him one day to learn all there is to know about how to turn concrete, resin and pigment into marble. It involves a lot of chemistry and attention to detail. My parents produced a windowsill. Then they had to guarantee it would be uniform and flawless. They had to prove they could make hundreds of thousands of them by a deadline. If there was any light in the sky there was a batch of marble churning. I still don’t know how they did it. I lived with aunt jonell. Our life changed so drastically it was kind of surreal. We had the property we just needed a house. My mom loves looking at house designs. It was no glorious mansion. It was just the perfect house for us.

I was five. Pooh bear remembers how fast that house was built. He thought it was perfection. When we hooked up and he found out that was my house he freaked out. He wondered who lived there. It seemed like a mystery. It was a cow field with a travel size trailer and a barn. Then in a couple of weeks it was by far the prettiest fucking house on our street. My mom makes bold choices. It was gray. What you couldn’t miss was the fire engine red front door. The driveway was intricate. On each side of the driveway was a row of yellow lilies. I don’t know how she pulls it off. My mom has this magic gift with flowers. I swear she doesn’t touch them and the flourish. Now our door is marked with red roses that always seem to blossom. What would’ve freaked pooh bear out was how pretty it was inside.

I swear my mother was able to make the eighties sexy. She worked hard and she played hard. This was her house and it was like a museum. My mom’s greatest passion is purchasing artwork. We go through phases. I can’t remember the name of her favorite artist from that decade. We spent a fortune framing her prints. Some things are timeless. We have three painting of very strange birds that are still on display in our new living room. Our house was very unique and so was are lifestyle. When we bought furniture we truly splurged. I still have the same bedroom suite I had as a five year old.

My bed was very special. My room was quite large. I had a giant queen size bed. My aunt adored the color pink and my bed had a gorgeous pink canopy that was highly unusual. My mom had quite an obsession with dolls. Each year she picked me out an utterly magnificent porcelain doll to display on my book case. She was almost quite selfish when it came to providing me with toys. Her passion was Barbie and those dolls were truly all I had to work with. I have mentioned my brother was quite abusive. He had a fascination with maiming my dolls. My parent allowed that behavior and it highly affected me. I learned to play with dolls that were maimed in every way possible. I love flea markets and one of the few things I buy are vintage dolls that are quite creepy and abused. Nonetheless, I was spoiled rotten.

My brother was truly pampered like a little prince. He had an Atari, he had a pinball machine, he had every GI joe toy. He had the full star wars collection. One of my earliest memories of abuse occurred when he got a go-cart. I was only five. Suddenly he pushed me out and ran over me. That began the cycle of warning me ‘If you tell I will cut you just like you dolls.’ He collected weapons. I dad enjoyed buying him knives. I promise you he was a sadist. He insisted on carrying his knife collection with him at all times. My c***dhood was violent. I learned to dodge Chinese throwing stars. I actually began to hate my father when he provided him a martial arts grade set of knun chucks. I can promise you it hurts like a son of a bitch to get beat with them. At five I was nothing like a normal c***d. Before school began I knew how to read quite well. I also was taught how to tell time and set an alarm clock.

From the first day of kindergarten I woke from my alarm. I brushed my teeth. I dressed myself. I was trained how to make coffee. Every morning I woke my mom up handing her a cup of coffee and getting her cigarettes. I had really thick long hair she had to brush. When she fixed my hair I got my book bag. I walked to the bus stop and went to school. I remember the exact moment when I fell in love with my mother. I barely saw her. She worked so hard. She ran straight to the shower to scrub off fiberglass and collapsed in bed those first few years. One day she was too tired to make it to the shower. Rather than taint her bed with fiberglass she simply collapsed on the kitchen floor dressed in rags. She was sleeping so hard without even a pillow. I stood there crying. I know exactly what it is like to be covered in fiberglass. The realization she could pass out on the floor covered in it changed me.

My mother was strong. One thing she did without fail was cook our dinner. I can laugh about it because her cooking was so damn bad. We had burnt chicken, instant mashed potatoes, and a can of green beans almost every night. What she did do right was prepare us each a salad for every meal. We thrived. My parents were able to buy a shop in town that gave them more room for production. There is nothing they desired that we didn’t get. My mom loved the crooked man who ran the business beside us. He sold stolen merchandise for cheap. My mom was able to buy a gorgeous vintage silver mercades benz that was truly riddled with a few bullet holes. I told you she played hard. She got a vanity plate on the front of it that simply said ‘spoiled rotten.’ I am truly a lucky little girl. She even had one of the first car phones available installed.

Both my parents adored television. I had a huge tv in my bedroom with no restrictions. They had a tv in their bedroom. My brother had his own tv. Then my dad took the plunge to truly make are life unique. He researched the most expensive satellite available. Over time it was quite common for people to have a satellite. Ours was so early in development it was like a giant space ship in the yard. It was gigantic. My dad was in heaven. It cost a small fortune to install. It cost a fortune for service. To try to explain how rare it was is quite difficult. When most people had three channels to choose from we had thousands. The damn thing was equipped to allow us to watch any show in different time zones. The remote was like the size of a book. So you can grasp how strange it was we had to use the local bookstore to custom order our tv guide each week. It was as thick as a phonebook. Each week our tv guide cost fifty dollars.

We were spoiled. My most cherished possession was a top of the line swing set with slides and various contraptions. In our backyard we had the biggest possible above ground swimming pool. My parents even built a privacy fence around it. Eventually my dad bought my brother a doom buggy. I was scared of it after I got ran over by the go-cart. Eventually he got a moped. The very first Christmas Nintendo was for sale my dad brought it home with every game possible. I was forbidden to touch it. My mom’s dream was to buy me a pony. I pitched a fit. I was still traumatized she made me eat my cow. I refused to bond with another large a****l.

Instead I requested a hamster. His name was mikey. We usually kept him in his plastic ball and he was constantly rolling through the house. I was obsessed with our massive fish tank. I still have a fish tank obsession. If I had a lot of money I would have a massive aquarium. My mom was quite strange. Since all her clothes got ruined by glass and chemical she had no concern for her appearance. She went to goodwill and bought giant bags of clothes without looking at them. Her sister was such a cunt. She would throw massive parties with all my mom’s old friends and wouldn’t invite her. She was embarrassed my mom didn’t have nice clothes. She was a compulsive shopper. She would blow grocery money on dresses she couldn’t afford. My mom kept her and my cousin fed. She could take our money but not invite us to the huge parties she threw that my mom helped pay for.

My parents took the next step. They bought out a failing marble business and finally reached their full potential. They moved past windowsills. What they did was so special. It was so ahead of its time it is nearly indescribable. My dad created molds for tubs. But they were not just your standard tub. Each one was equipped with jets making it a marble Jacuzzi tub. Our life changed. I talk about a c***dhood surrounded by convicts. Mr. Willy was a former employee from the business that my parents bought. He is absolutely why I have no concept of being prejudice. His story is worth its own book. Very young in his life a group of white men tried to **** the woman he was with. He killed a white man with his bare hands. Back then any black man killing a white man was severely punished despite the circumstances.

He faced the electric chair. I think he had a sentence of fifty years. He was a model criminal and he was released early. He got married and pumped out some babies. Then it is almost like history repeated. Once again two white men attacked his wife and he killed them both with his bare hands. He talked about it openly. Times had changed. Even though he killed three white men he escaped electrocution. He received a life sentence. He told my mom the first thing he did was go sit in the chair and conquer his fear. It was his job to remove the dead bodies and clean the chair after an execution. He once told my mom the easiest way to escape the chair was to fake a breakdown and start eating your on shit. They couldn’t electrocute people deemed criminally insane.

He stayed happily married while he did his life sentence. He had a shitload of grandc***dren. He was in his seventies when he was released. The former owner was openly afraid of him. We took him in like family and he was like a grandfather to me. Even a man who has murdered three people and spent his life in jail has merit. My mom earned her reputation one day. One of the employees was loaded on meth and he started beating my father. My mom didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a huge board and beat him u*********s and they had to call an ambulance. The shop was glorious to me. I could watch my parents work for hours. My mom was the true genius. Our customers were all filthy rich. She has a gift with colors. Some people just see white. My mom new the pigment chemistry to produce fifty shades of white.

Our show room was unforgettable. It was a marble palace. Not only did my parents make Jacuzzi tubs. They learned the art of covering the walls in marble. They could install intricate marble showers. They learned how to produce artificial granite as well. It was the eighties and my mom pulled of something unusual. It was a time dedicated to gray, teal, green and pink. What my mom is best known for is the color pink. It was her signature. She still bitches that she never had an employee who could follow her very precise pigment recipes. I watched her hover over the mixer carefully measuring out her recipes. My dad was usually on the jobsite installing her creations.

My c***dhood was filled with mansions to explore. My father did something very special for my grandma. She doesn’t have a nice house but her bathroom is flawless. She got the full treatment of pink marble walls and a massive matching tub. A beautiful thing can be ruined so quickly. The economy crashed. Almost overnight my parents had at least ten full installations go bankrupt and not pay. You can’t repo marble once it is installed. My dad went nuts and went to town busting up what he created so no one could have it for free. Materials to stay afloat are very expensive. I have mentioned my millionaire dad uncle was jealous of my father. There is proof. He went to the man he thought of as a brother and asked to borrow five grand. That’s all he needed. Customers were lined up and waiting. My uncle refused. He destroyed my family. My dad never recovered.

They had to file for bankruptcy. Within the same week a man knocked on our red front door. I don’t know how much he offered to buy our land and our house. He planned to make it a polo field. It was an offer they couldn’t refuse. Everything happens for a reason. That very day a lady put up a for sale sign on this house. You would be shocked what it looked like. It was a historical home yet it was a four bedroom shack. The first time I was in my bedroom I wasn’t paying attention and I stepped on the air vent and went thigh deep tearing up duct work. I begged them not to by this house with all my heart. It is very strange. It is so old it was here before the street was. My bedroom is shockingly close to the road. If you saw the way they transformed this house you would never believe they only paid forty grand for it and the massive yard. My mom told me to trust her. The last thing I did in my mom’s dream house was mark my height on my closet door and right my name.

The night after we moved out someone broke in. They set a bon-fire in our living room and it burned down in minutes. We were all devastated. I have an unnatural fear of fire. That’s what pooh bear remembered. It was built in a few weeks and burned to the ground in less than ten minutes. My parents rebuilt every aspect of this house. My mother was right. That strong as bitch can do drywall better than a man. They traded work to build a beautiful brick fireplace. The final renovation was my dad’s farewell gift. He planned to leave as soon as he finished my bathroom. My mom promised me as a c***d I would get a Jacuzzi tub. She saved it for me in the yard and I didn’t notice. It is her color pink and it is perfect. My mom doesn’t break a promise.

She went to nursing school. She passed at the top of her class. The only job my dad could get was being a garbage man. He never carved another thing or made another mold. He was broken. Just to be a dick he even installed the hot water heater for my bathroom inside the wall with no way to access it. But he didn’t leave us. I inherited my mom’s gift with color. I inherited my dad’s ability to carve. I really am an artist. I really do have a chance to succeed. I watched my parents do it. When my uncle the millionaire died no one would buy him a tombstone. One time when we were desperate he gave us five hundred dollars. That is precisely how much money my mom spent to give him a small piece of granite that just says his name. We always repay our debts.

One final note. When my dad died my mom gave our family friend my dad’s molds for the perfect lamp post. She was shocked beyond belief when he handed her a check for twenty grand for something she tried to give away. Don’t underestimate me. Those lamp post are still being produced all over the nation.