Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster Read Online Free PDF Page B

Giant,” which is not all that much better than “the Freak,” if you ask me. I’ll never forget her constant greeting to me: “Hey, Jolly Green Giant, how’s the weather up there?” or, on uniform-free social occasions, “Looks like the Jolly Green Giant’s expecting a flood!” and on and on. These comments were always followed by gales of laughter from her subjects. Seems stupid, and even rather banal, I know. But imagine something you can’t help, like your height, shoved in your face over and over, every single day, for years.
    Because my existence was beginning to resemble a never-ending game of Pin the Tail on the Freak, one could hardly blame me for escaping whenever possible. I did this by existing almost 100 percent of the time in my imagination. I spent almost every single class from grade school through high school lost in a safe world of my making. Even then, I couldn’t bear to be present or fully in my own skin. Even then, I couldn’t wait to be other.
    Only recently has it dawned on me that this was unusual behavior.
    I’d pay attention in English and history classes, or if I liked a teacher. But most of the time, the bell would ring, I’d look down at my book, and I’d be gone, totally gone, for the next hour. Sometimes my fantasies would be sort of conventional, like I’d be a rock star’s girlfriend. (I’ve always had a preference for the drummers, don’t know why.) Sometimes I’d enter the world of whatever book I was reading at the time. Sometimes I’d be an actress in New York dating a drummer. But my most common fantasy was much simpler: I’d be the new girl at my school, my name would be something normal like Becky or Lisa, and I’d be so teeny-tiny and gosh-darned cute that people couldn’t resist picking me up and kissing my adorable cheeks when they passed me in the hallway. I would be so enchanting that even Amy would invite me over for a swim in her new pool.
    Unfortunately, I was other so often that eventually I was sent to special classes for kids with learning disabilities. Which added yet another name for kids to call me: “Retard.” I remember crying into my pillow many nights, railing at God, Seriously, now I’m retarded and a giant? What’s next, Lord, epilepsy? Surprisingly, the good Lord bellowed, Certainly, why not, ye Freak?
    Thus, from age seven to twelve or so, I had epileptic seizures. I don’t remember much about them, only that one second everything would be normal, and the next second I’d be on the ground, kids would be crying and staring at me, and a horrified Father Ryan would have his meaty paw wrapped around my tongue to prevent me from choking. One time, I remember riding my bike home from school when it happened. I came to just as a terrified woman was rushing to me from her car, thinking she had hit me. I played it off, saying I must have hit an unseen bump and I was fine. I walked the rest of the way home on rubbery legs and never told a soul. The seizures stopped as soon as I hit puberty, which, interestingly enough, coincided with leaving grade school.
    Despite that my life at this point was sort of a bummer (for an upper-middle-class, Midwestern kid with plenty to eat, lots of fun vacations, a beautiful home, and parents who loved her, that is), I knew something none of my classmates did. Deep inside, I knew someday I’d win. Because only I knew that the girl they loved to make fun of, the girl who was only invited to slumber parties when they were absolutely forced to, the girl who always said the wrong thing at the worst possible moment—only I knew that this girl, this stupid, spindly stick figure with a terrible personality actually disguised a future FAMOUS ACTRESS. Or FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHER. Sometimes it was FAMOUS MODEL. And sometimes, it was simply a FAMOUS PERSON. If I was FAMOUS , it would mean that I was NOT ME , which would, in turn, make me HAPPY.
    Finally, when I was around eleven, in my final year of grade school, things began