Thursday, September 21, 2006

A Piece of... Work

Shan, the oldest, is in 11th grade, but two o fher courses are taken at the local college, one of them being advanced English. It's called dual-credit: she gets her high school credits plus college credits. Way cool.

Her first assignment for English was to write a paper - autobiographical.

On February 19th, in the year 1990, I was born to Jon and Brenda Fontenot in San Franciso, California. My first birth certificate read that my name was Martha Jane Fontenot, weighing in at five pounds, three ounces, and measuring fifteen inches long. It wasn't until my father flew back home from an art convention three days after my birth that the mistake was noticed. My older sister's name is Martha Jane; my mother had named me after her other daughter while she was high on the anesthetics. When I was born, Martha was nine and Paulson, my older brother, was seven. My grandparents came to visit me the day after my father did, but, unfortunately, got in a fatal car wreck on the way back to San Jose. They both died instantly. My mother, an only child, received all of the inheritance. Our family is very fortunate, despite the great loss that I'm positive my grandparents were.

My childhood was very auspicious. My father was, and still is, a world renowned sculptor, and my mother sang in jazz clubs during the night. I began attending a vocational, arts-based elementary school in uptown San Francisco called Randolf Primary Academy when I was five years old until I turned ten. I took many classes that are often not taught in standard elemenatry schools, such as art history, vocal, theatre, and dance. I picked up on all of it instantaneously. Dance was my main passion; I devoted all of my spare time to perfecting myself under the training of Ms. Judie Forrester. After five years of intense training, I took part in the Bazmark National Dance Competition. I took second place, defeating people years older than myself and landing a position in an international tournament. The next year, two weeks after my twelfth birthday, I danced at the Mostiko Nuto International Dance Tournament in Japan. Against two-hundred competitors. Celia Mathis approached me and invited me to join the Mathis Dance tutors, but then quit right before the start of seventh grade. I wanted to be a normal girl.

I began grade seven at Salizar Junior High in Ft. Worth, Texas. We moved to Texas during the summer to try to settle down and get away from the big city. Ft. Worth was big, but not as big as my hometown. I attended that school until the first semester of eighth grade, when I was expelled after being caught smoking in the girls' restroom. My parents, under the assumption that the influence of the public school system caused my downfall, immediately registered me in Brooley's Reform School or Young Ladies. I stayed in the boarding school for two years, visiting my parents on holidays only. We relocated to Copperas Cove, Texas, before my freshman year of high school. I became pregnant and delivered my beautiful daughter, Fiona Calecia, on July 2th, 2004. We stayed in Copperas Cove for one more year before moving once more to Cameron, Texas, where my mother started a horse ranch and I acquired the nickname Dinaes. I am now a junior at C.H. Yoe High School.

I plan on following in both my mother's and father's footsteps. I have my own art room and I also have coaches who continue to train me. After I graduate, I hope to attend the San Francisco Art Academy to double major in the dance and art studies, during which time I will enroll my daughter in a full-time boarding school. I do not want a husband, nor do I desire more children. In this class, I don't aim to get a specific grade. I will do what I want when I want, and whatever grade that leaves me with is the one that I will ultimately be satisied with. Although I believe in reincarnation, I also believe in living for myself like I will never live again: No regrets, no would-haves, could haves, or should-haves. This is also why I have no problem with exceeding the word count limit; you asked for my childhood and I gave it to you. Leaving things out would cheat you out of a great story.

When it comes to literature, I'm a not picky woman. I read studies on mental disorders and novels about people like myself. I enjoyed the book FARENHEIT 451 because it was easy for me to pull apart, and I loved THE GOOD EARTH by Pearl S. Buck. I like books that I can find the symbolism in. Likewise, I enjoy over-the-top works of fiction that make one wonder about whether something like that could really happen. I dislike boring, superficial books that do not have any meaning behind them, that leave me with nothing more than a headache.



Want to take a wild guess on how much of that is true? I'll tell you. Out of ALL of that, "1990" and "Jon and Brenda Fontenot" is it. AND - she got a 93! The professor made all kinds of notes, like "I'm so sorry!" for her grandparents dying!

Gah. So apparently I'm not the only storyteller in this family.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Big Shoulders and Tight Butts.

It's kind of odd - I've been married twice, and neither of them are/were (one's dead, after all) big on watching sports on TV. For some unknown reason, B's watching the Cowboys tonight (and c'mon, if you have to watch football, at least make it the Cowboys, right? Right.) I sat here checking email and spun around in my chair to oogle men with unnaturally broad shoulders and tight, spandex-ed butts and realized football really IS the ultimate in men being MEN.

Over the last few decades, we've taken the men out of men. We want them to be more sensitive. We want them to understand us. We want them to carry equal weight around the house (yeah - right. Never happen, and don't write me telling me you're the exception, because dollars to donuts your wife would tell me the TRUTH. Your delusion is cute though.) We want them to be interested in our lives. Why? Why would they care about a sale on clothes or what happened on Desperate Housewives? Do we REALLY want men like that? We are so busy blending and blurring the lines that distiguish men from women that there's a freakin' term for it: Metrosexual.

Which is weird in general, I think. Don't label EVERYthing. That's a rant for another time though.

I miss MEN. Dominant, this is my way men. Cavemen mentality. I hunt. I protect. I drag my woman by the hair at night and have my way with her.

Purr. Yum.

What's so bad about a woman wanting this anyway? I can't see a single thing. I want my guy to provide for me, to protect me. I want him to hold me and know I'm safe, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too, and I can go "all girlie" on him while watching a chick-flick or after reading a book or being all stupid because the shoes I wanted went on sale. I want him to think it's cute - I don't want him to UNDERSTAND it. If I wanted that, I'd call up my girlfriends instead. I don't want to think, "Oh goodie, if someone breaks in, my guy can teach him how to wax the backhair off - or hose him down with his hair gel." Oh yeah, that gives me goosebumps.

Ya know how girls complain because her guy is always trying to "fix it" and all she wanted to do was vent? Guess what? That's what guys DO. It's part of protecting us. If we're complaining about something, we're unhappy. If we're unhappy, they want us happy again - thus they try to fix it. I LOVE this about men. I think I should have been a woman in the 50s or something. I don't know.

Women are always told we should celebrate being women. Yeah, well, I think we should celebrate men being manly men. Give me an alpha-male and I'm a happy girl. I want him because he knows I look pretty, not because he knows I use the same hair products as Carmen Electra. That's flat-out weird.

Which brings me back to football. How great are these guys? They get PAID (overly paid, but not the point) to do what men want to do: Kick-ass without getting hurt like in a bar fight. Slap each other on the butt without being called gay. Scream profanities at the other team's line. Watch cheerleaders bounce around in skimpy outfits, because what guy doesn't love that? They have this energy and anger and driven purpose and they go at it 100%. They ooze testosterone, and I think that's a really fabulous thing.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Green, Gooey Glop

There's nothing quite as disgusting, much less disappointing, as bad guacamole.