The nutritional value of Lettuce

By the time I got into high school, I had been in the hospital a bazillion (yes, that's the exact count) times, withstood the adversity that is middle school with relative grace, and went through a lot personal obstacles. So I considered myself kind of a bad ass. I dyed my hair colors not found in nature, an activity I still practice. I listened to Rancid, The Ramones, Saves The Day, and the like religiously. I also made multiple valiant, but as yet unsuccessful, attempts at owning my older brother in skateboarding. I have zero hand-eye coordination and I don't believe I even have a center of gravity, so that was fun. I also had a bit of an eating, or lack thereof, problem. About eighth grade is when girls start eating like birds, and not like the nonchalant gluttons of their youth. I can't remember the exact day that I stopped eating full meals, I don't think eating disorders are something many people set off to do. In my recollection, it started with not drinking pop (soda for the non-midwesterners) anymore. I used to drink it like water (to this day, caffeine is my one addiction, but soda makes my stomach twist). And then it just... happened. Opened itself up from some time bomb DNA particle, and left me in the end, almost 100 lbs and scared of food.

I'd convinced myself that everything had E-coli in it. Especially if it was at a restaurant. I reread one of my old journals recently and I was freaking out about eating a Bagel Bite, ONE Bagel Bite. But, in tradition with everything else in my life, music stepped in. I can't play anything, save Mary Had A Little Lamb on the piano... and even then I get the end messed up. I've had friends crack up laughing at my trying steering wheel drumming, but I love music. New song love, can't stop playing it over and over, feeling yourself crack open somewhere that you can't pin point, true new song love... saved me. I was sitting indian style on the floor of my bedroom, candle lit, the carpet was thick with dust and hair because I didn't believe in cleaning, and "ANA's Song" was playing on the radio. The song is by Silverchair and when I heard the first few lines ...

"Please die, Ana

For as long as you're here, We're not

You make the sound of laughter

And sharpened nails seem softer

And I need you now, somehow"

I cracked open. He knew it, that kid got it, and I knew it. I started with a diet, with a need for some kind of control, and then I lost it and skidded off into that scary unplanned abyss. The thing was, no one else seemed scared at all. A lot of girls at school ate peckishly, and they seemed fine. I however couldn't eat without sitting in my room afterwards, mattress on the floor, with a terrible, anxious stomach, pacing to distract myself. I thought I was the only kid that felt this spiraling away from me until I heard that contrasting voice of Daniel Johns', all raspy, and young, and hungry, saying that he felt the pain it caused just like I did. Thats song became my partner in battle, it was freakin' Patton. It took me years to be ok with eating out, and months to stop my diet of lettuce with salt and pepper, but I did it... me and that song did it.

The coat of many kittens.

Once upon a time, there was an overweight, asthmatic 7th grader. Well, thats every 7th

grader now-days, but back in my day, that was a bit of an oddity. I went to a small school in a

small town. I was already 5'8 and towered above just about everyone except for a 6' girl named

Rachel Ledmeyer. I wore the same Eeyore hoodie ever day of my life... this should say volumes

about how awesome I was. Rachelle Tedmeyer was also a big girl, and she danced ballet, and

always showed her 'dancers calves' to anyone who'd look. And in ageless playground tradition

she got made fun of, a lot. And in ageless I-went-to-a-school-surrounded- by-cornfields-and-yet-

here-I-am-writing-a-book tradition, I too got made of, a lot. The difference between Rachelle

Tedmeyer and I was that she did not have a big mouth. It might have been because she had a

bigger brain. Various kids ranging from jocks to... All we had was jocks, and later a lot of

pregnant chicks, but now just jocks. Followed her 6' frame around the halls making Chewbaca

noises and calling her the Yeti. She wasn't that hairy and I'm pretty sure she had never been to

the Himalayas, let alone lived with indigenous wildlife in subzero temperatures, but alas, I

defended her. We had each others backs in the way that only true outcasts can, buy standing up

for one another, but never actually associating.

One day, the Yeti and I were headed off to lunch. Now, let me preface this buy asking you a

few questions 1. Have you ever been fat? 2. If you answered yes to number one, ya know that

gap in the back of your jeans when you sit down? Its not an obscene gap, but it's there. That

one? Yeah well I got pop poured down it while eating lunch with the Yeti. I was sitting there

eating what was probably pizza because it's only digestible thing we had at school, and I felt it. I

sat up and turned around to face Josh Noore, some douche bag wannabe skater, who I had

never talked to EVER for more than five minutes. He had bleached hair, and his skin was red all

over punctuating his now smiling blue eyes. I was astonished. I didn't know what to do. I think he

said something about how he was just joking, and I, crying at this point, probably spat a few

choice words out.

The Yeti walked me out of the lunchroom and into the hallway repeatedly asking if I wanted

her to go to the office with me to call my mom. I was livid and definitely not calling my mom so

she let me borrow her jacket to wrap around my waist. Which would've been really sweet and all

if she didn't (unbeknownst to me at this point) happen own a hoard of cats. Cats that I was, and

still am, severely allergic to.

I was sitting in math class when my eyes started to water and itch. Not just like oh, my eyes

are tired and itchy, like oh my God, do you have a spoon for gauging? itchy. My nose also

started to run like I myself couldn't. And then... I felt that distinct, this is a big one, breath

shortage. This wasn't a 'Oh where's my inhaler?' asthma attack. This was 'Oh is that an

ambulance?' asthma attack. I can't think of anything that triggered it. I wasn't in a dire, fight or

flight situation in the past few hours. Flight had always been the known route of handling the pop

down the pants situation. I hadn't ran into any chain smokers in the bathroom, and I hadn't had

any physical exertion in a good half hour. However, while contemplating raising my hand for

medical assistance, I looked down and saw hundreds HUNDREDS of little, tiny, cat hairs. I

suddenly found myself in math class wearing a coat of kittens, which sound awesome. It isn't. I

figured if I got the coat off I would maybe feel better. So I got up to go to the bathroom and gave

Rachel her coat back in study hall, wet pants be damned. I handed it to her and asked if she

perhaps, maybe, possibly owned a cat. She enthusiastically replied that she had 'ohmygosh,

like 12'. And a few minutes of agonizing breathlessness later, I was on the phone to mom

attempting to relay my epic story of defeat between baited breaths.