idea.
“Honey, remember you’re a fatty. Don’t let people take advantage of you,” Mom had said to me when I was ready. Encouragement? The woman was off her rocker. She was nuts. As I was carrying my suitcase to the rental car, she began telling me another story about the sitcom Golden Girls . I told her I had to go or I would be late for my plane ride to New York!
I had only flown once in my life. Back when my grandma was still alive, she flew my sister and I all the way across the country to Buffalo, NY. Her brother lived there. He was some kind of scientist or university professor. I remember thinking they were rich. We slept at their big sprawling ranch house in the suburbs of Buffalo. I was about 10 years old I guess.
My great uncle and his wife took my sister and me to Niagara Falls. Wow, that was thrilling. Downstream from the falls was a whirlpool which terrified and intrigued me for years after the trip.
Something else stuck with me for years after that trip. I was the first time in my life that I was embarrassed by my weight. My mom had me convinced that I was her cute baby. I never thought of myself as fat. I thought of myself as cute. That was about to change.
My great uncle’s wife was named Betty. Betty still went to the beauty parlor and got her hair done. Betty was a prim and proper housewife. She had makeup and jewelry on, and wore a dress, while she cooked us all dinner. I liked Betty a lot.
We all ate her chicken, and then she brought us fresh baked blackberry crisp with whipped cream. She began to serve us all huge slabs, much to everyone’s delight. When she got to me, my plate had a tiny piece on it. She put it in front of me and said, “You should really learn to cut down on the sweets, Honey.” I could feel my face turn beet red. Nobody else seemed to notice, they just dug into their giant mounds of desert. I slowly ate mine, crumb by crumb. I remember it being delicious.
I still hurt from that even though I was at 30,000 feet in the air, roaring toward Stevie, brownstones, and Brooklyn at 600 miles per hour.
The day seemed to take forever, but seeing Stevie waiting for me when I got to the security checkpoint and Newark Airport was the thrill of a lifetime. He looked tougher, cooler, and sexier than ever. The man could rock a t-shirt and jeans. He kissed me passionately right there with hundreds and thousands of people from all over the world rushing this way and that.
It was almost 10pm by the time we were riding the shuttle into Manhattan. I was spellbound. I would have been excited just to hold Stevie’s hand in the dark bus, but instead, I was seeing the New York City skyline rise up before us. Then we were in New York!
Yellow taxi cabs thundering down the 4 or 5 lane avenues, rows of cars on the cross streets, and people of every color, shape and size on the wide sidewalks.
Then we went down into the earth to wait on a crowded cement platform with a train track running up against it. We smushed into seats on the stainless steel F Train and it pummeled its way to Brooklyn in short order. Finally we were on well-manicured, relatively quiet streets in Park Slope as we walked to the Astral Record’s brownstone.
“Yoko’s here,” I heard a one of the band say before I was all the way in the front door. I blushed. Stevie sighed and shook his head.
“Don’t mind them,” he said.
I did mind and so did they. Why shouldn’t they. They’d been together for 2 years, just the 5 of them. Now all of the sudden I was in the middle of the most exciting time in the band’s history? Not only that. Their charming lead singer, the focus of the band, was going to be seen with a curvy girlfriend?
Life wasn’t meant to be perfect, I told myself. Just look around at all the people that you thought had it all that have screwed up royally or gone down in flames. I was in love; I would have to put up with the circumstances.
Later
“Honey, remember you’re a fatty. Don’t let people take advantage of you,” Mom had said to me when I was ready. Encouragement? The woman was off her rocker. She was nuts. As I was carrying my suitcase to the rental car, she began telling me another story about the sitcom Golden Girls . I told her I had to go or I would be late for my plane ride to New York!
I had only flown once in my life. Back when my grandma was still alive, she flew my sister and I all the way across the country to Buffalo, NY. Her brother lived there. He was some kind of scientist or university professor. I remember thinking they were rich. We slept at their big sprawling ranch house in the suburbs of Buffalo. I was about 10 years old I guess.
My great uncle and his wife took my sister and me to Niagara Falls. Wow, that was thrilling. Downstream from the falls was a whirlpool which terrified and intrigued me for years after the trip.
Something else stuck with me for years after that trip. I was the first time in my life that I was embarrassed by my weight. My mom had me convinced that I was her cute baby. I never thought of myself as fat. I thought of myself as cute. That was about to change.
My great uncle’s wife was named Betty. Betty still went to the beauty parlor and got her hair done. Betty was a prim and proper housewife. She had makeup and jewelry on, and wore a dress, while she cooked us all dinner. I liked Betty a lot.
We all ate her chicken, and then she brought us fresh baked blackberry crisp with whipped cream. She began to serve us all huge slabs, much to everyone’s delight. When she got to me, my plate had a tiny piece on it. She put it in front of me and said, “You should really learn to cut down on the sweets, Honey.” I could feel my face turn beet red. Nobody else seemed to notice, they just dug into their giant mounds of desert. I slowly ate mine, crumb by crumb. I remember it being delicious.
I still hurt from that even though I was at 30,000 feet in the air, roaring toward Stevie, brownstones, and Brooklyn at 600 miles per hour.
The day seemed to take forever, but seeing Stevie waiting for me when I got to the security checkpoint and Newark Airport was the thrill of a lifetime. He looked tougher, cooler, and sexier than ever. The man could rock a t-shirt and jeans. He kissed me passionately right there with hundreds and thousands of people from all over the world rushing this way and that.
It was almost 10pm by the time we were riding the shuttle into Manhattan. I was spellbound. I would have been excited just to hold Stevie’s hand in the dark bus, but instead, I was seeing the New York City skyline rise up before us. Then we were in New York!
Yellow taxi cabs thundering down the 4 or 5 lane avenues, rows of cars on the cross streets, and people of every color, shape and size on the wide sidewalks.
Then we went down into the earth to wait on a crowded cement platform with a train track running up against it. We smushed into seats on the stainless steel F Train and it pummeled its way to Brooklyn in short order. Finally we were on well-manicured, relatively quiet streets in Park Slope as we walked to the Astral Record’s brownstone.
“Yoko’s here,” I heard a one of the band say before I was all the way in the front door. I blushed. Stevie sighed and shook his head.
“Don’t mind them,” he said.
I did mind and so did they. Why shouldn’t they. They’d been together for 2 years, just the 5 of them. Now all of the sudden I was in the middle of the most exciting time in the band’s history? Not only that. Their charming lead singer, the focus of the band, was going to be seen with a curvy girlfriend?
Life wasn’t meant to be perfect, I told myself. Just look around at all the people that you thought had it all that have screwed up royally or gone down in flames. I was in love; I would have to put up with the circumstances.
Later
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