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3WW: judge, nightfall, safety: space chick with the electric hair

December 8, 2010 By pia

(I have been doing a word exercise–750 words.  As always thanks Thom for the words.  All the 3WW’s below this are fragments or outline type chapters from Space Chick) This is my article on Non Verbal Learning Disorder (NLD) that sort of inspired my memoir.

¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶
It was summer orientation before my freshman year at that bucolic campus on the North Shore of Long Island.  Post wasn’t known for its academics.  if it had been I wouldn’t have gotten in.
Five curvy miles from my parents house, almost in the same public school district, they let me have a dorm room so I could have the “full college experience.”  My cousin had graduated the year before and he had talked my parents into letting me live in the dorms.
I had been corresponding with the girl who was to be my roommate.  She was a cheerleader.  I was a hippie freak.  She had long dark brown hair she ironed every night.  I had longish chestnut hair that frizzed everywhere it seemed.  Still people, to my constant amazement, loved my hair.
I knew because hordes of men in the city, construction workers and average guys would scream things out about my hair, face, clothes, body.  In 1968, you didn’t have to wonder if you were pretty or not.  Guys would just tell you.  I hated it yet couldn’t imagine being one of the girls nobody said anything to.
I’m sure Melanie was shouted out to.  If she ever went to the city without the protective arms of her quarterback boyfriend.
I’m sure I was the last person Melanie wanted for a roommate.  We had bought matching blue bedspreads, curtains and other things for the room.  The bathrooms were large and communal.
Freshman girls had a 10:30 curfew on weekdays and a 1:00AM curfew on weekends.  It was supposed to be for our safety.  At orientation they explained the rules.  There was a Resident Assistant (RA) on each floor.  She and she alone would determine if we were doing everything right.
There was a demerit system.  You could get demerits for not making your bed by 9AM, for not wearing shoes in your room, for not wearing a skirt to dinner, for being sloppy, and it would turn out just for being me.
She was judge, jury and it turned out, wannabe executioner.  Lois the RA was German.
She took an immediate like to Melanie.  Everything about Melanie screamed “affluent, good girl, fun, easy.”  Everything about me screamed “rule breaker, bad, maybe stupid, possibly poor but those clothes she wears….”  I wanted to be like Melanie, god did I want to be.
Orientation was more fun than I expected it to be.  When I was buying my books an older boy, much older stared then smiled at me.  I was scared to smile back but I did.
Melanie and I made some sort of truce during orientation.  I wanted her to like me and did everything in my power to make myself likable.
But the truth was most girls didn’t like me.  I had a few girlfriends but most people who talked to me were boys.
We went home for the rest of the summer.  It was the summer of the Chicago Convention.  Vile.  Horrible.  My parents had practically locked me in the house so I wouldn’t go with friends I had made earlier that summer.  It was for my own safety my parents assured me.  I was angry at them but secretly glad I wasn’t there.  Yet I should have been.  It was so conflicting.  For the rest of her life, my mother a non-crier, would cry whenever she saw anything about the Chicago Convention.  “You could have been killed.  Or worse.”  Worse meaning brain damage.  If they had only known how damaged my seemingly good brain really was.
I don’t know how to talk about non verbal learning disorder in this memoir. I can only show what I was like and maybe at the end of the book put in a chapter that explains how my behavior, in each chapter,  was infuenced by NLD.  I don’t know.

The rest of the summer was spent getting ready for school.  My mother and I went to Floyd’s a discount store near our house and spent $40 on health and beauty aids as they were just beginning to be called.  It seemed like a fortune to me then.  We filled up two giant shopping bags.
We went to Loehmanns and bought clothes my mother liked.  Fortunately my mother had good taste, and was proud of my figure.  I knew most girls I would like would basically wear bell bottoms with cotton peasant blouses.  I could get the bell bottoms from my parents store along with an endless variety of tee shirts.  But I was into dressing up.  I wasn’t the bell bottom kind of hippie but the Indian print dress type.  I managed to make all the clothes my mother bought at Loehmann’s into some sort of hippie atire by pairing dresses with pants and/or putting a Mexican rope belt on.
I managed to make myself stand out.
Finally school began.  My parents drove me and I couldn’t wait until they left. They stayed and stayed.  Finally just before nightfall they left.  I kissed them good bye.  Walked out of the room and began to make myself a life.

Filed Under: 3WW, 750 words, memoir, space chick with the electric hair Tagged With: 3WW

« 750 Words–actually 900–letter to a friend; We are the Blenderbusters!!!! Spacechick with the electric hair
3WW–dabble, lean, utter: Space Chick with the Electric Hair »

Comments

  1. Jae Rose says

    December 8, 2010 at 8:42 am

    My Melanie was called Alice – there’s one everywhere isn’t there..I love the comment about not wanting men (or anyone) to notice you but feeling lost when nobody sees you at all – so true if your 18 or 38! I hope that life you stepped into was great..Jae

  2. Grandma says

    December 8, 2010 at 11:07 am

    That brought back some similar memories from my own college days and provided a little education as well – your post prompted me to google NLD.

    Double Duty

  3. Janet Aldrich (tec4) says

    December 8, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    I really like your writing; I remember those times, even though I was younger. It was a confusing time to be alive, let alone to have to deal with what was going on for you personally. Good work.

  4. Nara Malone says

    December 8, 2010 at 7:03 pm

    I remeber the days of social politics — shudder. I never hear of NLD…interesting.

  5. sage says

    December 8, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    I can now imagine how hard it will be to leave a daughter at school…

  6. TC says

    December 8, 2010 at 10:00 pm

    When can we buy the book? 🙂

  7. Bone says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:45 am

    There was a demerit system. You could get demerits for not making your bed by 9AM…. for being sloppy

    I think I dated her 🙂 Oh wait.

    Very much enjoyed this. And a perfect ending, to this chapter.

  8. Terry says

    December 9, 2010 at 11:03 am

    Pia – I had no idea that Courting Destiny was up and running again! Great to see you writing. I love the way your words flow out, just as they would if you were sitting here across the table from me, over a cup of coffee. Whoo hoo hippie girl 🙂

  9. Doug says

    December 9, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    Schools like that are really real?

    Small editorial request: Can we get an empty space between the introduction and the story. For some reasons it catches me up this way.

  10. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    @Jae Rose
    Jae–thanks–and then you turn 58 and would pay…Not really. It has been great and it’s only just beginning again!

  11. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 5:56 pm

    @Grandma
    I loved college–all 3 of them. Hope you learned a bit–I put in my article in response to your comment. So thanks a lot.

  12. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 5:57 pm

    @Janet Aldrich (tec4)
    Janet–yes it was confusing but fun. I didn’t know I had problems thought I was very clumsy, kind of stupid in some areas and brilliant in others and blamed everything else on the times. Still do

  13. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    @Nara Malone
    Nara I never thought of them as “social politics” but as times that needed changing and was always proud to be part of the solution–just a little. I mean I helped just a little. Didn’t end the war myself as has been rumored

  14. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    @sage
    Sage–oh just you wait. Just wait!!!! Girls are more mature now. Schools are better equipped. Boys are something

  15. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    @TC
    TC thanks for asking. I really hope hope hope to have it altogether in a month or so. My lack of organizational skills have been playing havoc with it.
    It’s so not laziness or unwilling to do the final work or anything like that. I think I have worked harder and longer than many people who have been published recently. end of rant 🙂

  16. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    @Bone
    Bone–thanks and I’m sure you dated “daughter of…”

  17. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    @Terry
    Terry–why thanks!!!! Loved your comment–made me feel as if we were sitting across from each other

  18. pia says

    December 9, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    @Doug
    Doug–oh this is just the beginning of the RA and the roommate story and what they tried to do to me. Just the beginning
    And thanks. your wish is my command

  19. cooper says

    December 9, 2010 at 10:31 pm

    I’m loving this, but I feel that Doug wields way too much power around here for someone who does not blog.

  20. pia says

    December 10, 2010 at 5:46 am

    @cooper
    As usual you’re right but I spent the day staring at it and thinking “I really should make this more readable.”
    So the power is in his head and my allowing him to think it

  21. Sender UpWords says

    December 10, 2010 at 11:32 am

    Interesting read. I can relate. I went to an All boys school (though I didn’t board) and this resonates with me quite well. Love and Light, Sender

  22. pia says

    December 10, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    @Sender UpWords
    Oh it wasn’t an all girls school. Only the girls had curfews and demerits. That’s the next chapter

  23. Karen says

    December 11, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    Pia!

    I read your comment at Terry’s Timeout and I agree! Why save love and peace for December? Whoo hoo hippie girl – Happy holidays!

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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