Eating alone. I am eating my words of judgment, as I sit alone. By myself in this bar. See I was a feminist before I knew what feminism was. I choose to always study women who stood taller than they should. Susan B. Anthony. I ran to be the only girl in the mock elections in my 5th grade class in the Dukakis v. Bush (I) election. I wanted to be the first woman president.
I used to do things like play sports with the boys even when coaches or teachers said girls weren’t allowed to play. Play basketball in the gym with guys because girls never played when he wasn’t looking. So if he came in and I wasn’t playing I would fail this pe class. In my sophomore year. In my planned community. I took up the challenge. For no one told me no, not because I was a girl. Not now, not ever. I played my heart out as the only female on that court. Sweating and not caring just playing. And every time that teacher walked in his head turned down more quickly. I took the apology as easily as I took the challenge from him. He told me he was wrong, he was.
I got in fistfights with boys. I realized this helped out in my case because no bitches fucked with me. It was risky I realize this now. But two times I threw down over what I thought was justice. First a guy in freshman year started making fun of someone who was jewish. I got up and promptly slapped him across his face. In the middle of math class. We didn’t have a problem again until senior year and he yelled at me for not buying enough donuts for the senior picnic.
Later, I was donned with the nickname Tyson. After the ear biter/rapist/boxer/tattoo slurrer we call a boxer. Tyson was my name because I stood up against the injustice of a partial canning (when you literally put someone in a trash can) by a guy who was a year ahead of me in school. Canning was a type of flirtation of high school. I kicked my legs against the metal aluminum in the middle of the school quad of all the eyes on us. I got out of the trashcan. And saw all dots staring my way. I didn’t have any other choice. I swung my fist back and punched him square in the face. In front of the whole school. At lunch. Tyson they called me. I walked a little lighter.
See I was raised by my father so the limits of femininity were never mine. I never ate them. Consumed them. Threw them up as a bulimic. I didn’t starve myself beautiful. I didn’t squelch in fear that I couldn’t. A father raising a daughter is a sociological experiment and I am the researcher and the subject. See I had ideas about my mind v. my body and my looks. I always knew that my mind would always trump what was on the outside but it wasn’t until I left the black and whiteness of things. That I had to eat my words.
Poverty does that-makes your ideals and stances and soapboxes diminish. I didn’t strip, or pose or anything that would have been too much. But I was a miller lite girl once upon a time. For a few minutes of my life, for a few months. I don’t even drink such shitty beer even when I was poor. My snobbery of beer was mine even then. I ate my words every time I put on the whole black outfit. I put the real me-the qualities of wit and mind- somewhat on the shelf as to do my job. Everyone at each bar mostly guys were surprised I actually had a brain. Because miller lite models are idiots. Or so we thought. Women who use their bodies and faces to sell things are. I ate my words alone at the bar. I took the words in of claims for idiocy and stupidity and I swallowed my words when I ran into my former college classmate across the country where no one knew me. I wasn’t just a miller lite girl- I wanted to say. But I just ate my words. Alone. At. The. Bar.
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