My childhood was a disaster. I know that underneath all of it, I still had a LOT of privilege, even though I was DESPERATELY poor growing up. We had a roof over our heads, but barely, and my parents did their fuckin' most to make sure I never needed anything, and fuck, man, bless them for that. I sure WANTED for lots of things, but that isn't the point. I was in this weird place of extreme poverty, but still privileged, and I'm not sure how that works out, but I suppose it does. Anyway, the point here is, my childhood was not so great. Though...one thing I DO want to mention...I was a pretty special member of the Lisa Frank Fan Club when I was a little girl. I got things to color, and stickers, and a pencil, every month, and I'd get even specialer things on my birthday. So yeah, my life generally sucked, but I mean, I got pictures of pandas in overalls and ballerina bunnies, so I guess it was a wash? My mom wouldn't let me be a member of the MST3K fan club, though. I wasn't lying when I said I was abused.
It's not terribly surprising that I wanted a lot of attention as a young girl. If I wasn't buried in a book, pretending to be Jo Marsh, or The White Cat, or my absolute literary heroine Anne Shirley (I will always say that she is the person in literature that is the most like me, and you can fight me on that if you want, but you'll lose), I was doing the absolute most at school to be noticed. Keep in mind that I'm talking about elementary school here. I was larger than life, and while I distinctly remember everybody loving me, the adult in me is fairly positive everybody fucking hated me and wished I would die. And who wouldn't want to shut up the frizzy haired weird girl that was extra as hell with her theatrics? I was like Carmelita Spats, without the mean streak. I was also a know it all, and I love how I've made that past-tense. Like I'm not still a hideous know it all. Everybody always wanted me on their team when we played Brain Quest, and I always thought it was because I was popular. In retrospect, I'm fairly sure it's because I knew all of the answers, and everybody wanted in on that winning action. In third grade, I discovered that boys were interesting to me in a way they hadn't been interesting before, and the first boy that made me feel that way was Elliot Glassman. Oh my god, he was the rising and falling of the sun to me. I had no idea why, but I wanted to impress him, so that's what I set out to do.
Our teacher, Mrs. Brown, read to us every day, and obviously I could use that to my advantage. After all, I read all the time, I was an amazing reader, both out loud and in my head, and what person ISN'T just swept off of their feet, blown away, and then sexually drawn to a person that can read with perfect cadence AND do all of the voices differently so there's a distinction between all of the characters? I was pretty quick to learn that the answer to that question was "nobody". Mrs. Brown was reading The BFG to us one day, and I had the absolute nerve to raise my hand and ask for permission to read to the class instead, citing that her voice sounded tired.
What a fucking cunt I was.
Mrs. Brown let me read, though, and when I tell you that I stood in front of the class and didn't just read, didn't just do all of the voices, but utilized my limber, gangly, awkward and long limbs to make story time ACTION STORY TIME, I am telling you the truth. I acted out the simplest sentences, ones that didn't even deserve a hand gesture, much less sweeping arm movements and leg kicks. I was never allowed to read to the class again, unless it was at my desk, and I'm sure it will surprise nobody when I say that Elliot was not impressed.
In fourth grade, I still held a pretty passionate, burning flame for Elliot. I don't know if he knew, but with the way I read to the class, i'm pretty sure that my dreamy-eyed staring at him from across the class was just as over the top and ridiculous, so if he didn't know, it was less a testament to my subtlety and more a statement about how oblivious he was. We had a school concert coming up, where every class had to present some kind of little show for the rest of the school, and it had to celebrate diversity in some way. In my head, I planned out something super elaborate, where I was the star. I was dressed like a princess, and everybody would love me, because I would look beautiful and elegant and like a grown up, and who would notice most of all? Elliot Glassman, that's who. Did anything close to that happen? Not even. We did something celebrating South America, complete with cha cha dancers and maraca rattlers, and some sort of chorus number. Did Mrs. Brown (yes, I had her for two years in a row) stick me in the chorus? No. She knew better than that. I'm fairly sure she needed a laugh, because she made me the conductor. Now, I didn't have to hide in a pit, I was front and center on the stage. I would argue that I had the most important part, because I was in front of everybody, telling them what to do. Or at the very least, pretending to tell them what to do. Now, here is where Mrs. Brown failed me, and why I'm pretty convinced that my casting as the conductor was for the benefit and mirth of herself and any other adult watching:
Nobody told me that conductors are stoic figures, that utilize their movements to really signify changes that orchestras or choirs need to make. Tempo, pitch, things like that....I had no idea the nuance of being a conductor. I knew that I was in charge of everyone, and Mrs. Brown made SURE I knew that I was "the lead" and that the lead needed to conduct the other students.
Well fuck me sideways, Winston Park Elementary, this was surely not just my ticket to stardom....yes, I thought that to myself, and I remember thinking this to myself, and yes, it embarrasses me enough that I physically shudder when I think about it....but my ticket to Elliot noticing me for my brilliance and charm and my AMAZING skills of a conductor.
Did I mention that we had three separate parts of this performance? We had the choir, the cha cha dancers (Brittany and Jillian. The most popular girls in class. Brittany and Elliot really liked each other, so naturally, Brittany could eat shit, for all I cared), and the maraca dancers. Did I know that I was only conducting the choir? I did not know this. Was I corrected and told I was only to conduct the choir? I was not. Did we have SEVERAL practice sessions before we presented this? We did.
How did the presentation go? I'll tell you. And I'll preface this by saying that the reason I remember this in such stunning detail is because I am SO EMBARRASSED by it.
I got dressed that morning in my most flamboyant, and also, in my mind, Hispanic looking outfit. It was a very colorful skirt that went down to a little past my knees, and it was the absolute twirliest. I could execute PERFECT twirls in this skirt, and the skirt would stay up and spin and spin and spin, hovering around my midsection like a glorious carousel, a brilliant flash of colors and patterns whizzing by too fast to see, because the skirt was magical, and I felt magical in it. I paired it with a shirt that I had used for Halloween. I just spent thirty minutes trying to hunt down a photo of that shirt, but I couldn't find it, and my mom couldn't, either. This shirt was used with a cowgirl costume...I don't know why I ever wanted to be a cowgirl fro Halloween, but I was one year. The shirt had this strange ruffle on the front...like a sewn on cravat from a bad tuxedo shirt. My favorite part of the shirt, though, was that it had a little tie in the front, and it showed my tummy. I didn't realy have any clue about being sexy back then, but I knew showing my tummy off felt daring. So this white shirt with a bad tuxedo front that tied above my belly button paired with the twirliest skirt felt, somehow, Hispanic, so I put that outfit on and went to school, and I cannot remember what I was thinking, but I'm sure it was all daydreams about Elliot Glassman telling me I was charming and beautiful and that Brittany was nothing compared to me, and I was the smartest girl in the whole school (now, I will say that he DID eventually tell me that, even though the way he did it dashed my heart into a thousand pieces, but that's for later), and we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. Even though I had no fucking clue what that meant. None of us did.
Here's what actually happened.
It was my class's turn to do their performance, and I was fuckin' READY. I had my game face on, me and the twirliest skirt in the world were going to bring down the fucking house. Do not forget that my only job was to move my arms around and conduct the choir. That is such an important detail, because I did not do it. The curtain lifted, the choir took their places on the little choir bleachers (is there a name for those? Choir bleachers isn't it, I'm sure), the cha cha dancers hid behind the choir bleachers, and maraca shakers stood on either side of the choir bleachers, and then out I marched, taking my place in the center of the stage, looking out into what I imagined was a sea of adoring fans, and I fucking curtsied and bowed. Like I was a huge fucking star or some shit. I turned around, and with as much gusto as I had in my tiny little bones, I used my hands and made all manner of fucking ridiculous gestures to the choir, indicating that it was time to sing their song. So they started singing, not so much because my crazy fuckin' hands demanded it of them, but because the background music started, and that was their cue. So, the choir is singing, I'm doing my best impression of someone having a seizure in their hands, and then it's time for the maracas to come in and start shaking, so I stop conducting the choir and start conducting the maracas. And when I say conducting the maracas, I mean I dropped my conductor's baton (I made it myself, did I neglect to mention that? I made it my fuckin' self, because diving deeply into something is all I know how to do) AND PICKED UP AN EXTRA PAIR OF MARACAS I HAD HIDDEN ON THE SIDE OF THE STAGE. Yes I did. And then I stood in place and tried to show the maraca shakers how to shake their maracas. Which is so condescending, now that I think about it, because how fucking hard is it to shake a maraca? It isn't. Did they need to be conducted? No. But I legitimately thought I was conducting EVERYBODY, so I shook my little maracas, and I didn't shake them in time to the other maraca shakers, so I can only imagine how much I brought down the room, and the general sound therein. A third maraca shaker, not following the beat, and just shaking her maracas anywhichway she damn well pleased? What a fucking nuisance. But in my head, I was REALLY bringing my A game, and elevating this performance to an entirely different realm.
And then.
Then it was the cha cha dancers' turn. Here's where it all fell down.
Brittany and Jillian came out, doing whatever dance they had practiced, which I had zero knowledge of. Just like I had zero knowledge of the rhythm the maraca shakers were going to shake out. I knew the choir, because THAT WAS MY ONE JOB. That was all I was supposed to know. That wasn't good enough for me, though. I heard "conduct", and I fucking ran with it. So out dance Brittany and Jillian, and I throw down my maracas, and I start dancing, too. And when I say dancing, I fucking mean it. I upstaged Brittany and Jillian by a million miles, though not because of grace, or talent, probably because of sheer shock value. I twirled across the stage, I cha cha'ed, I shimmied, I held up my arms and shook my hips, and kept twirling my skirt like some kind of colorful, insane, whirling dervish. A shocking, surprising, tornado of color and dance moves twirling her way around the stage, REALLY seizing my moment and assuming I was selling my skills to the audience, and they were loving it. I have to imagine that EVERYBODY was insanely confused. The rest of my class, Brittany and Jillian especially, my teachers, my fellow students, and the parents that had come to support us. At the end of the song, I was breathless and red faced and shimmied out, and I legitimately had the nerve to step in front of everybody else and fucking bow. I pushed my way to the front of the stage, like the asshole primadonna I believed I had earned the right to be, and bowed and curtsied like I had seriously been the star of the show. And perhaps I was, but for all the wrong reasons. I imagine my teachers got a HUGE laugh out of my antics, but I was never spoken to about it negatively. The only comment I got was, "You know, you were only supposed to conduct the choir, but I love how into the performance you got." I'm pretty sure that's what sunk this all into my memory, because I remember being told that, shooting a look at Elliot Glassman, and then feeling more embarrassed than I had ever felt in my entire life, because I knew I had way overstretched myself, and I probably looked like a fool instead of like an AMAZING performer. Elliot didn't give a shit.
Here is where I want to take a small break and just kind of clue you in on what I was working with as a kid. This is a picture from Fourth grade:
Great hair, great shirt, AMAZING taste in the finest of plastic jewelries. Why I wasn't dominating the social circuit is beyond me. Except it isn't, I was terrible.
I don't know how soon it was after that amazing performance of mine where I hogged the spotlight, but it couldn't have been long, I asked my best friend Taneesha to ask Elliot if he liked me. For whatever reason, young me had a self-confidence and ego that present day me envies like crazy. I was ALWAYS feeling myself, despite the fact that my mother dressed me about eight years behind the curve, I had frizzy hair, I was always buried in books, I had an answer for everything, and while this look may have been working for Anne Shirley, it certainly did Ondrea Tucci zero fuckin' favors.
Taneesha obliged, because of course she did. I remember hiding in the corner of the classroom like some kind of feral animal, watching their exchange, hoping for good news. In my head, I remember Elliot looking uncomfortable, though it didn't register as uncomfortable to me then. I'm pretty positive that's just adult me projecting onto the memories of young me, but uh...that projection is very probably correct. Anyway, Taneesha comes back and tells me precisely how Elliot feels about me.
It wasn't good, just to save you the agony of waiting for the punchline.
Elliot thought that I was alright, for a girl, but that I was the smartest girl in school, and a good friend. I didn't know enough to know that was a brush off, I took it as hopeful, but I really honed in on the "girl" thing. Like, a lot.
I spent the summer daydreaming about me and Elliot being boyfriend and girlfriend, whatever it was that that meant, and I knew that being seen as a girl was what was holding back my daydream of us being together from being reality. I needed to be seen as a woman.
It's funny how life works out for you sometimes, because when I went into fifth grade, with all of the same kids in my class (Elliot sat at the back of the room in a group that had Brittany in it, and I was seething with jealousy over that), the girls were OBSESSED with getting their periods. i mean, there was a lot of time dedicated to talking about it. I remember standing in line for lunch one day, with Jillian and Brittany and my besties Janice, Daveeda, and Taneesha, all of us a buzz over what we had heard it was like getting your period. I hoarded all of this intel and used it to my advantage. Jillian, Brittany, and Janice had all heard their older sisters, long into their periods, talking about what it was like to have it, so everything they talked about came from what I considered to be reliable sources. I decided that a period was what made you a woman. I don't know how or why that decision was made on my part, maybe it was some hairbrained video we watched in sex-ed, but that was the thing that was going to change me in everyone's eyes. My period would transform me, from "alright for a girl" to "so beautiful, as a woman" in Elliot's eyes, and fuck, I wish I were joking. I really do. I wish I were making all of this up, especially the next part.
I hatched a plan to fake my period.
I dropped hints to my friends about the symptoms their sisters had discussed with them, like oh, I feel like I have cramps, and then gesturing toward a vague section of my stomach. I have to pee so much now, which...how was that a symptom? I have no idea, but very frequent urination became a thing. My chest is sore, even though I had zero fuckin' chest to speak of. These clues were all dropped on the same fucking day. I wasn't smart enough to lay down the framework for my period over time, because I didn't know any better. So over the course of one day it was BOOM cramps BOOM peeing a lot BOOM my non-existent titties hurt. Now, I WAS smart enough to not just drop these hints, but to play them up. When I had cramps, I clutched my stomach area and grimaced as believably as I could. When I mentioned I had to pee a lot, I played that shit up in class, running to the bathroom every ten minutes. which was in our classroom, not in the hallway, so my antics were noticeable, and I thought I looked every bit like the kind of girl who was about to get her period, but I probably just looked like a little girl with very desperate diarrhea. Or a kidney infection. After half a day of being what I assumed was the very model of pre-period, it was time for the finale. While Mrs. Nathanson, my fifth grade teacher, was at the board, doing math problems or something, I honestly don't remember, I gasped VERY audibly and ran to the bathroom. Again, not thinking for a second that people might have thought I had diarrhea. Which is what I would think now. Diarrhea or bulimia, but definitely definitely DEFINITELY not period. I bide my time in the bathroom and, because of COURSE I did this, I pulled red food coloring out of my pocket and squirted all of it in the toilet. Every last drop of the red food coloring I stole from my mom's pantry the night before, gone. I got it all over my fingers, which bothered me for two seconds until I realized it made my period story more believable. I put the food coloring bottle in my pocket so I wouldn't leave evidence behind, and then came waltzing out of the bathroom and declaring the following to the entire class, very loudly:
Well, it's happened. I'm a woman now.
And I put a LOT of emphasis on woman. Probably WAY too much. The entire class looked at me, the lesson stopped, and I felt so fucking smug and satisfied with myself, because how adult must I have seemed in that moment? A real life woman. A WOMAN in their midst. Those fucking lucky ass fifth graders, to be in the presence of a living, bleeding woman. You know who didn't give a shit? Elliot fucking Glassman. You know who did? Mrs. Nathanson, who rushed into the bathroom, dragging me in there with her, and my plan kind of fell apart here, because I didn't realize that periods were a huge fucking deal, and longer than one moment, and more involved than I could have ever anticipated. Mrs. Nathanson flushed the toilet (how on earth did she not go, "yeah, Drea, that's fucking red food coloring in the water, what the fuck. The jig is up, bitch, explain yourself immediately"), hugged me, asked if I felt ok, and then said she'd walk me to the office so we could call my mother and have me picked up from school. And I literally had to spend the next five fucking years faking like I had a period, but REALLY badly. Like, REALLY badly. My mom started me off on pads, and I just kind of stockpiled them, because I didn't know what else to do, or how to fake using them. And she'd ask me to tell her when I needed new pads, and then I'd be like, oh, now. I need new pads now. But the timing was always erratic. If I had ACTUALLY had my period, I would have needed pads WAY more frequently. But that doesn't matter, and it certainly doesn't matter that, when I finally got my period for real at age fifteen, skipping school because I ironically had sore boobs and cramps and an upset stomach, and this weird feeling that felt like I maybe had to pee, but different, watching Maury Povich and eventually bleeding all the fuck over my mom's hideously ugly green leather sofa, I couldn't even tell anybody, because I had been faking my period for so long that everybody thought I had it already. I had nobody to announce I was officially a woman to.
And nobody fucking gave a shit about me announcing it to an entire class, trying my best to target the ears of Elliot Glassman, hoping against hope that a bleeding vagina was what fifth grade boys were hoping for in a girlfriend. Elliot Glassman continued to not give a flying fuck about me in the way I wanted him to for the remainder of the year. I was absolutely gutted. I harbored that crush well into sixth grade, even though he didn't go to my middle school. I had a very hard time letting go of my first non-celebrity crush, because it was new and different and eye-opening. I didn't think I was supposed to get over it, because I had no fucking idea that boys would flit in and out of my peripherals for the next twenty years. Elliot Glassman was the first in a long, long line of boys that I would fawn over and dream about in spectacular fashion, and make a fool of myself over, again and again. In that way, he's nobody special, he's like every other boy I came into contact with. The thing that makes him special is, he got to witness my period.
