My little uniform

When I went to first grade I wore a uniform.

Everyone did. We were all equally dressed and depressed in brown and black. A student could roll up in a Rolls Royce to the school, but inside the school he or she was supposed to be on the same footing as the kid who had to take the metro.
On our first day of school, a symbolic September 1st ( I can still remember the panic that swept all over me), we wore our celebratory outfits with white aprons.

Everyone looked like they knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going. I wasn't even sure what class - A or B I was supposed to be in. My parents had to help me figure that one out. I was in A.
Everyone was holding flowers- carnations. I know people think they are cheap flowers, but I like them just the same. The experience of first grade parade has not spoiled my like for the everlasting flowers. But what I fell completely heads over heels with was
   A hair bow.
I wanted that hair bow like nothing else. It was my first and only time I have ever been jealous of another person's possession. ( Gina Lollobrigida's legs do not count.)
I begged my mother to get me that  gaudy synthetic bow from the one and only supermarket store, where we had to have a government coupon to buy things with. There had to be a coupon for a Bow! Pretty please!

My mother finally relented and said she'd get me one for the week after.
I dreamt of my Red (for I had decided it had to be red with sprinkle of yellow and orange in it) bow.

I could not wait to put it in my hair. I was going to look spectacular! Everyone would Ooo! and Aaaa! my flowy hair and my big Red bow and I'd be Queen.
Instead I got this.

A tiny green ribbon. How humiliating.
But the bow, or lack of one was the least of my problems.
My much bigger problem (and I mean BIG) was my 1st through 3rd grade teacher Antonina Pavlovna.
Just recently my old classmates had a whole thread of discussion on odnoklassniki.ru  about how we still can't forget the nightmare that she was.
*This is a cautionary tale for kids and their parents. Be nice to your teachers. This is what used to pass for educators twenty years ago.
Antonina Pavlovna  loved to yell.

She loved to exercise - by throwing students into walls.

Her favorite pastime was intimidation followed by humiliation.
One time she yelled at a kid so much, his entire breakfast came back up.

I can't be sure, but I think she made him clean it up.
Decades later  at a reunion his classmates asked him what he did for a living. He hugged his muscled arms and said in a deep voice 'I take care of problems'.
I bet every time he 'takes care of a problem' he imagines  A.P.'s face before him.
As I said her favorite past time was intimidation and humiliation, in that order, but her absolute favorite thing to do was to hit me on the head as hard as she could with her knuckles.

She once said my head had made the best sound. Because it was hollow.
Now you know why I have such a thick skull. It's not because I am a Taurus.
I think I was her favorite project. She really, really didn't like me. I had a broken finger once and I came to class anyway, because missing a class was never an option. If you missed class, a doctor's note was not enough. You had to bring the doctor.
Anyway I had a broken finger and we had dictation that day.

And that's how I learned to write(scribble really) with my left hand.
My little sister joined my school when I was in my third year.
She lasted a week.

While my teacher should have been locked up for child abuse, my sister's teacher was in need of AA.
Needless to say my parents pulled my sister out of the school right away. They 'forgot' to take me.
There was a school at an Italian Embassy where a friend of my dad's worked and they admitted my sister immediately.
To say she liked the school and her new teachers would be an understatement. She loved it and everything that came with it. She learned Italian, she learned how not to flinch away from a teacher and she learned that a school can be a nurturing and hopeful environment.
This was their break time.

And this was mine.

Round and round the circle we went between the  classes on our breaks. Like prison inmates, with a warden looking on.
Still I learned to pass the time wisely.

All those pretty dresses and all those pretty bows I made up in my head made my day go by faster. And they say fashion is frivolous.Pft.
Hopes and dreams of fashionable future can save a life of a depressingly dressed child.  That and plotting revenge against the oppressor. Hugely helpful.
Next week - The uniforms turn white and blue.

New York part 2 (really 3)

So my brother went to college. We are all very proud that he didn't end up sitting in the basement playing his video games for the rest of his life as he had planned. Besides, basement is occupied. Hehem.
We flew to New York to help him in case he got lost, or in case he needed a band-aid. I think we went cause it was New York and any excuse to get us to New York was good enough for me. In reality we did end up getting him band-aids and numerous maps so that would get used to subways and streets. My parents flew back early and I stayed on, just in case he needed anything. It turns out he needed plenty.
So we shopped for his essentials -

We set up his room - (lucky man got his own room! what a  luxury!)

We even decorated his room with Mark Rothko posters (hate) that we had to get at the MET, and some Pollocks (more hate) that we traveled specifically to MOMA to get. Mind you, we didn't actually go into MOMA- just the store. Apparently, we are those people.

My brother's only contribution to the whole room decorating business was telling me where to put the posters. By the fourth crooked Pollock (like anyone can tell when its upside down or not) I had some choice words about where he can put it.
But then something weird happened-

- when I wasn't looking, nagging, or tucking his shirt in - he went and found little (tall) weirdos just like him. Tears ran down my face,(not really, after years under California sun, my eyes have learned to act without water) the little boy wonder was all grown up.
Looking at him made me think back into the long forgotten past, when it was I who was going to college, and he was the one standing in the corner crying. (and he was really crying)

That is me, and my first roommate Wendy, and our third unofficial roommate Helen. In the corner is my little brother. Not yet crying.
My roommate and I had one little room on the top floor of Wolberg Building. It has since been announced unlivable and has been turned into art animation studio or something like that.
For some bizarre reason, probably designed for suicide prevention, yet in reality probably providing motive for the said suicides, there were no windows on our floor. And those of lucky enough to have windows in the rooms, this is what they looked like-

We didn't know if it was day or night. If it was rain or sunshine. If we wanted to know how we should dress, one of us had to run down to another floor and look out of their window. One time in May I walked out and it was snowing. That's really not a window problem as much as Chicago weather problem, but still a real window would have helped.
Anyway the window was not the only problem- the low ceilings gave us quite few headaches.

We learned not to get up abruptly and instead wake up very, very slowly. This practice is one I have carried on with since my college years.
My roommate Wendy and I got along fine. We had to, we lived in tiny quarters and there was literally no room for fights. While some people went out drinking, and others smoked pot in their room, we did such wholesome things as debate religion before falling asleep, sometimes to the point of getting very loud and angry(on my side mostly). We would eventually get carried away, sit up in bed and bang our heads on the ceiling. Best way to get to sleep is to get knocked out by your own ceiling.
Wendy and I acquired a third unofficial rommate by the name of Helen.

Helen was weird. Still is, but now in a different way. Back then Helen was shiny and shy and a bit slow when it came to humor.
We would watch  The Simpsons  on Wendy's TV (while one us held the antena just right). About an hour after the show was done and forgotten, suddenly we would hear Helen cracking up. 'I just got it' she would explain. I am not making this up.
One night, bored and restless( since we didn't have any crack), we decided to paint on the ceiling. I think it was after an unfortunate incident with Dunking Donuts shop. I was thrown out and not permitted to film int here for my video project. I vowed then to get even! And I have- but that's another story.
So we painted on the ceiling

Helen was confused. 'Why are you doing this?' she had asked. 'Cause it's fun Helen, God, you are so slow.'
But Helen wasn't slow- Helen was smart. When our RA came in and saw the FUCK words we had used to decorate the paining on the wall she demanded we take it down. Art school my butt. Where's the freedom of expression? Where's the love of the arts? Sure we had a porn class, but Lord forbid if someone painted on the corporate walls or ceilings. Yes, we had a porn class, no I wasn't in it and it didn't last long. Neither the class, or the actors. At eighteen, who can last?
Despite all my protest, our RA made us remove the paint. I would have rather joined the porn class- less pain.
We weren't even half way through, but my fingers were already bleeding, Wendy was cursing under her breath and Helen, well Helen was having the last laugh.