This was a moment I wish I had someone with whom to share. Had a brief moment of happiness this AM. Out walking when it was only slightly snowing. It snowed a bit overnight, but nothing like the recent blizzard. At a certain moment the snow had completely stopped. Or so I thought. I looked up just in time to see a blast of snow coming off of a tree, having been blown off the branches by a strong wind. It was beautiful to see, but I had to turn around to avoid the snow hitting me in the face. I laughed and laughed in a happy way. I specify “happy” because in my opinion most laughter is not a symptom of happiness but of anxiety, or acknowledgement of something uncertain or troublesome. This was just a little joy, as I felt when still a child.
Stream of consciousness talking into the recorder has me recalling my first kiss. It was horrible. I was in 9th grade, another girl I think was in 11th. She carried herself like an adult. We took after school classes at the Uuniversity of Tampa. There was reception area where students sat and socialized. I was sitting there by myself when she came in with a couple of friends. With no discussion or notice she just put her face right in mine and stuck her tongue down my throat. I did feel something positive inside, sexually, but I found the unwantedness of it disgusting. I wanted more, just not from her.
Months later I was with some friends in Plant Hall, which is a beautiful old structure that was conevrted from a hotel to a classroom building. Plant hall is famous in Tampa for its onion-shaped minarettes, which you could say are an icon of Tampa the way the Unisphere is a symbol of Queens. Plant Hall had lots of twisty-turny hallways and secret-seeming rooms, with surprisingly unrestricted access to everything from janitor’s closets to the famous minarettes themselves. Friends and I wandering about this plae, feeling like we might be trespassing or that we could get kicked out, when I saw three people at the end of the hall. Two were standing on a fire escape, one was inside. The others were maneuvering their way back inside. The first of those 2 set both feet on the floor and the person already inside, who I could now tell was a woman, started making out with him. The other person on the fire escape got back into the building and this woman started making out with him, too. She went back and forth between the two men, grabbing them at the crotch. They were wearing capes and funny hats. This was not Halloween or any holiday. It was summer time. The anxiety of being in this building after hours combined with the sexual activity and the crazy costumes had me thinking these guys were gang memebers of somehow dangerous.They did not seem to notice we were there, and we quietly turned and left.
The next week I told this story to Beth, the woman who had rather unwelcomely kissed me that time. Se were friends by this time. I described the whoel scenario at Plant Hall the same as I just typed it. She started laughing. “THAT WAS ME!” She was the one making out with these two guys, whose identities I never knew.
