A treatise on Michael Jackson and my butt.
I've had a pretty rough day full of Doctors appointments and whatnot. Without going into specifics, let's just say there's something awful and painful going on my tailbone. The surgeon I finally saw about it today told me it was a cut and diaper rash. Apparently a cut and diaper rash can become excruciatingly painful and drain blood and puss once a month. Who knew? Then I got surprise silver nitrate and had to walk home in horrible pain.
Anyway, enough has been written about MJ's death in the past 24 hours, and I don't really think that I have anything of note to add. Just like every other person who lived through the 80s, he was my hero. I remember owning the VHS copy of "Thriller" with the making of feature that I would watch on repeat. And when that horribly sad documentary about him was aired while I was in college, I seemed to be the only one sticking up for him
And what this is all leading up to is my fucking MJ shirt. I remember one day when I was a child and my mother packed my lunch, she put an apple in my oh-so-cool Lisa Frank lunchbox. I, not being one for healthy things at the time, ate my pudding and my chicken roll sandwich, and threw away the apple. Around recess time, I started thinking about that apple. I thought about my mother working a job she hated, always with the looming threat of layoffs over her head. Her obsessively selfish personality manifested itself into a deep depression on many occasions, which she blamed on this hated job, and on me. I thought of this apple not as a mere piece of fruit, but as a portion of her day. She had to spend time in that hated place just to afford this apple, and I had thrown it out. I cried my eyes out and had to be sent home because I couldn't catch my breath through the sobs. I tearfully confessed to my mother, who held me and told me that it didn't matter.
Also growing up, I had an MJ shirt. It was yellow and had one of those awful plastic-y decals of MJ in his "Bad" days, and it was my favorite shirt, at least until I discovered the New Kids. Even when I entered adolescence and outgrew the shirt, I had my grandmother cut out the decal and stitch it onto an XL black t-shirt that I knew would fit me forever. My intention was to continue to transfer that decal onto a new shirt whenever the old one got ratty. I pictured myself as an old woman, sitting on a porch, with my MJ decal stitched onto an old lady t shirt.
I carried that shirt to DC with me, where it stayed in a drawer until Lil and I were doing our annual clothing purge last year. I realized that I never wore the shirt, and we threw it out. And now I feel the same way that I did that day I threw the apple out. I feel lost, sad, and disrespectful. I wish I had kept it somewhere, even if I never wore it. I feel like I threw my love for MJ out with it, and he was clearly nothing without his fans. It's just an object, I know, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Wrapped into that t-shirt was my love for him and his music, my mother buying me that shirt, and my grandmother carefully stitching it together. And I threw it out. And I can't forgive myself. I need someone to take me home from school and tell me that it's all going to be ok.
Anyway, enough has been written about MJ's death in the past 24 hours, and I don't really think that I have anything of note to add. Just like every other person who lived through the 80s, he was my hero. I remember owning the VHS copy of "Thriller" with the making of feature that I would watch on repeat. And when that horribly sad documentary about him was aired while I was in college, I seemed to be the only one sticking up for him
And what this is all leading up to is my fucking MJ shirt. I remember one day when I was a child and my mother packed my lunch, she put an apple in my oh-so-cool Lisa Frank lunchbox. I, not being one for healthy things at the time, ate my pudding and my chicken roll sandwich, and threw away the apple. Around recess time, I started thinking about that apple. I thought about my mother working a job she hated, always with the looming threat of layoffs over her head. Her obsessively selfish personality manifested itself into a deep depression on many occasions, which she blamed on this hated job, and on me. I thought of this apple not as a mere piece of fruit, but as a portion of her day. She had to spend time in that hated place just to afford this apple, and I had thrown it out. I cried my eyes out and had to be sent home because I couldn't catch my breath through the sobs. I tearfully confessed to my mother, who held me and told me that it didn't matter.
Also growing up, I had an MJ shirt. It was yellow and had one of those awful plastic-y decals of MJ in his "Bad" days, and it was my favorite shirt, at least until I discovered the New Kids. Even when I entered adolescence and outgrew the shirt, I had my grandmother cut out the decal and stitch it onto an XL black t-shirt that I knew would fit me forever. My intention was to continue to transfer that decal onto a new shirt whenever the old one got ratty. I pictured myself as an old woman, sitting on a porch, with my MJ decal stitched onto an old lady t shirt.
I carried that shirt to DC with me, where it stayed in a drawer until Lil and I were doing our annual clothing purge last year. I realized that I never wore the shirt, and we threw it out. And now I feel the same way that I did that day I threw the apple out. I feel lost, sad, and disrespectful. I wish I had kept it somewhere, even if I never wore it. I feel like I threw my love for MJ out with it, and he was clearly nothing without his fans. It's just an object, I know, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Wrapped into that t-shirt was my love for him and his music, my mother buying me that shirt, and my grandmother carefully stitching it together. And I threw it out. And I can't forgive myself. I need someone to take me home from school and tell me that it's all going to be ok.