Transmissions from Alana Solomon

When I was a kid:

At my Grandma June’s apartment after school, I went to cook a hot dog and noticed that under the skin was a sheath of plastic. Of course it wasn’t actual plastic, but some kind of synthetic casing in place of intestine. However, I fully accepted that secret plastics were in our food. “I guess this is what the adults are up to now”

We cut rings and earrings out of the Macy’s catalog and taped them to our ears and fingers.

Similarly: I would make items out of cardboard and tape, in order to play pretend. It drove my mother crazy how much tape I would use to do this. It ceased to work its magic one day when I made a camcorder. I dug a hole in the backyard and sat in it.

I always wanted a hidden place. I would make forts, hang sheets, hide under tables, hide under the bed, bring food and drink and books. When I was homeless later the sense of security when hidden in a shrub or van recalled the feeling.

Once my cousin and I snorted pixi-stix and felt very naughty. I don’t even know where we found out about snorting drugs, that’s how young we were My mom let me watch The Exorcist at age 8. Afterward, I asked whether or not that “could really happen,” expecting her to laugh and reassure me, “of course not!” Instead, she looked me dead in the eye and said “yes.” Letting me watch the movie was bad but her answer was good.

******************************************

Hannah was so incredibly weird that one day our entire grade had an assembly where the teachers told us not to bully her. Of course this was like gasoline on a fire. But I was her one friend. Hannah raised orphaned ducklings. Or so I thought, until I went to stay at her house for a day and she took me out on the man-made lake and stole ducklings from their mother.

Many times I diverted bullies at school with my “drawrings” because I was a “good drawrer” and would draw for them.

When we’d go to the park behind the grocery store I would dig as deep as I could in the sandbox until I got to the clay because I thought I had reached deep down in the earth and next would get to the crust and under that would be hot lava.

My grandparents would drive me to the library and I would spend hours browsing various sections. My favorites sections were: the area about religion, and the one with all the stuff about Charles Manson.

We had a strobe light (my mom had bought it for a halloween party) and I would take it into my room in order to do a very elaborate dance routine, all alone, to the Right Said Fred hit, “I’m Too Sexy.”

One night my cousin and I were having a sleepover and maybe we ate too much pizza? or something? but we were farting a lot. She had a little decorative pillow on her bed and we thought it was hilarious to fart into the pillow again and again. But then later we dared each other to smell the pillow and I almost barfed.

I started drinking coffee at the age of nine and I’ve never stopped. Sometimes I wonder who I would be if I hadn’t started drinking coffee at a one-digit age.

I was terrified- TERRIFIED- of the little tiny fluffy white terrier next door. We had two dobermans.

Once I was hanging out with the cool older girl down the street (she was 9) and she caught me biting my toenails.

A girl who had gone to my grade school died of leukemia at a very young age. Her framed picture was in the main office hall and there was an award named after her. My friends and I (all boys, I was a hardcore tomboy) were convinced that her body was buried somewhere on the school grounds and made it our mission to find where it was. Definitely in the coffin-like wooden structures by the stairs, or the janitor’s closet.

I was in the G.A.T.E. (“gifted and talented education”) class until I found out some kids weren’t going anymore because the teacher was a “lesbian.” I didn’t know what “lesbian” meant, but I stopped going too and instead would walk around the school grounds for half an hour.