“Sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing.”
-Charles Bukowski

Today I am unshowered and gross, as well as a sneezing mess. Come and get it, boys! Seriously, the only nice thing about being sick like this is that my nose ring doesn’t slide around…because it is covered in snot and thus stuck in place. *sad panda rimshot*

Which reminds me of a story. When I was seventeen I had a car, a little Volkswagen Rabbit (the official First Car of punk rock girls everywhere, coming in second only to giant, rusty Buicks). Sadly, in my senior year of high school my first class of the day was Honors English, which was chockablock with stuck up assmittens, who objected to sitting next to someone who smelled like stale whiskey and cigarettes, and who would say things like “Faulkner was a PRICK” and “Do you realize this class is taught by a soccer coach with a plate in his head?” when called on. This class was followed by geometry, which was mostly full of high-achieving ninth-graders who were all scared of me for some reason.

So I didn’t have much motivation to go to school in the mornings, because my three hours of art classes didn’t start until after lunch. Often my friend (who had stopped showing up all together after her mother died) and I would choose the ninety-minute drive to Chicago over sticking around in town. Usually we would skip breakfast, as we often had a fast-food hangover from the night before, so we had to make two critical stops when we got there.

The first stop was a gas station, since my Rabbit would burn oil like crazy on the Kennedy. I would push the speed limit until the little doors rattled, which the car didn’t like very much, so we could get there as soon as possible. I was usually down about half a quart after this. I learned about the oil thing after my first trip to Chicago and back. When I got back into town an old guy in a truck yelled at me, “Hey, your car’s making that noise because it’s low on oil!” After that I learned to recognize the characteristic ticking sound.

The second stop, of course, was breakfast. We would usually arrive around ten o’clock and park on a side street near the neighborhood we were familiar with, which was near The Alley. We would wander around until three or so and then come home with spiked collars or German pornography.

One morning after arriving we stumbled upon a Jewish deli that had a giant case of bagels. My friend and I walked in and looked in the case at the bagels, drooling. Before the counterperson could come over to us, I was addressed by a very old man who was dressed in a really fine dark suit. He stood at the counter and was waiting for his order.

“Hello young lady,” he said with a slight Yiddish accent, addressing only me.

“Good morning,” I said.

“I see you have a ring through the middle of your nose there,” he continued. Often I was rude to people my own age, but something about this man commanded respect. I usually waited until I saw how people were going to treat me before I shut them down or walked away.

“Yes,” I said.

“I have never seen this before and it is interesting to me. May I ask you one question?” He looked at me with a glimmer in his eyes. Most people in the Midwest came up with the exceedingly clever, “Did that hurt?” or “Do you know you look like a freak?”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said, bracing myself for the usual questions.

“It makes me wonder, how do you kiss the boys?”

He made me laugh out loud. I was always so grateful, then, when I would run into someone who could see a person under the purple hair and metal.