As I’ve mentioned, I moved a lot as a kid.  The ongoing guilt-trip I laid on my parents was that they should have just named me “New Girl” because that was my permanent title for the better part of my elementary school years.

When I was 13, I lived in a quaint fishing village in Connecticut.  Another one of many small towns, filled with many mean kids. My desire to fit in ran deep--deeper than just normal teenage angst because I had NEVER fit in.  Anywhere.  A sense of stability or any idea of a comfort zone was (and still to a large degree is) completely foreign to me.  I desperately longed to be accepted and popular.

One story from this time in my life completely epitomizes my struggle.  I was in 7th grade.  I had braces.  There was a 50’s Dance at my Junior High, the social event of the spring.  For the moment, the popular 8th graders had accepted me into their very elite clique.  (The 7th grade girls recently ostracized me after I committed a serious social faux pas on the bus—another great story for another time) The 8th grade girls felt I was being unfairly persecuted and took me in.

God, I worshipped those 8th grade girls. Idolized them. I wanted to learn how to do it.  How to be one of them.  They had it all--boyfriends, good grades, big boobs, endless party invites, cheerleader outfits and fancy cheers, names that ended in “Y”; they were wildly popular and most importantly, they had moms who would make them awesome poodle skirts with cute, felt poodles, sewn on with a white pom-pom for the tail and everything... 

In a momentary dream come true, they invited me to be seen with them and said they would meet me there!  Well, of course I needed a costume!  At this point, I was only 13, but when your mom goes nuts, you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to things as trivial as Junior High dances.  Desperation set in when I realized (alas) I had no poodle skirt or a mom who would make me one.  So I did what I learned to do best, improvise.

Being the giant dork that I was/am, I had a massive collection of porcelain animal figurines.  You know what I’m talking about?  Those little, 1” animals that old ladies collect?  Yeah, I collected them. Spent HUNDREDS of hard-earned babysitting dollars on them in fact.  Well, I happened to have a poodle in my assembly. 
 

(hilariously enough I think this is EXACTLY the poodle figurine I had)

I found the only skirt that looked remotely (nothing) like a poodle skirt and I sewed that baby on.   First of all, I can’t sew a button on a shirt, so the sewing of a porcelain poodle on to a flimsy JCrew summer skirt certainly wasn’t pretty.  Of course, I didn’t have any ruffles to wear under it either and hadn’t really considered that fact until it was too late. The skirt had an elastic quality and--due to the weight of the porcelain poodle--the last thing it might have EVER been called, was puffy.  The whole, flopping mess hung awkwardly and crookedly.  I looked downright ridiculous. 

Determined to laugh it off and still go to the dance, I admired my creativity and off I went.  The popular girls all looked smashing in their perfect, homemade costumes.  And if my memory serves correct, when I arrived, they were all dancing perfectly in unison, straight towards me, right out of a scene from Grease.  

In the middle of twirling about to “Shout”, my poor sewing job finally gave way (I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did), sending my precious, porcelain poodle flying into the middle of the dance floor, smashing it to pieces and with it, my dreams of being one of them.  It’s impossible to hide the sound of porcelain smashing.  I think the DJ might have even stopped the music.  Everyone turned from the site of impact to stare at me—awkwardly collecting the pieces of my shattered fantasies, fighting back tears.  I loved that fuckin' poodle.  The adolescents twittered amongst themselves: 

“Who's that?"
"Oh her, she’s that New Girl…” 
"What on Earth is she picking up?"
"Who knows!  What the heck is she wearing?"