![]() He might not have been as shy as I was, but he seemed quiet and nice. His dark hair was on the long side before long hair was a countercultural totem, and he was skinny-pretty much everyone was skinny in the early 1960s. I tried to spot him when we were outside for recess-there were eight classrooms each for seventh and eighth grade, and he was in the eighth grade wing-and observed him from behind the curtain of my friends. I wasn’t interested in boys or even flattered by their attention.īut that vision of Frank flipped a switch. But I was dedicated to horses and books and searching for arrowheads and buried temples. A boy named Jimmy-he looked just like The Little Prince, which was not an asset-gave me a necklace and took me to the movies (with his parents) in the third grade. A boy named Clifton sat near me in second grade and pointed to a picture of a pot of honey in a book and then gestured at me, suggesting that I was sweet. I hardly noticed them unless I wanted to beat them at some game. I hadn’t desired any boys in my short life. He once jumped from the top of a boathouse in a tuxedo to land on one ski and slalom merrily away from a wedding, a ten-foot watery rooster tail bursting in his wake.īut I never desired Pete I just adored him. He was as handsome as a movie star (think George Maharis, but laughing instead of smoldering) and always kind, and he was the star of the summer lake scene. I’m sure every girl or gay boy was in love with him. Since the age of three, I had been in love with my cousin Judy’s husband Pete. Not that I had never fallen in love before. I experienced my first sexual swoon, my brain lighting up with the astounding and unprecedented words, “I want to kiss him.” Then I beheld this boy on the other side of the counter helping the lunch ladies, wearing a hair net and smock just as they did. I was in the cafeteria line, thinking less about the sulfurous vats ahead than about where I would sit with my tray. I would now eat lunch in a cafeteria instead of bringing a mortifyingly wholesome meal packed by my mother. I first saw Frank when I was twelve, a jittery small-town California girl during my first week in a public school at the weedy edge of town after six years at tiny St. Until we meet again on the flip side, thanks for being such a stellar community! I’ll still be me of course, so it’ll be some combo of reading and writing and editing. I don’t know what I’ll want my life to look like when I come out the other side of this. I don’t know how many times you can start and stop a publication. I’m telling you this to explain why FGP is going away-again-at least for the short term. Plus, I had a spell of unrelated breast cancer treatment at the end of 2021 and the beginning of this year, and I’d hoped that was the bad thing in my charmed life. I thought this might a better year for me than last, what with Full Grown People coming back strong and my book out with some really nice reviews and a short essay I wrote that went maybe a teensy bit viral. It’s curable-(and let me emphasize this for my beloveds) CURABLE!-but the treatment (radiation and chemo) will be a rough ride. I’ve been diagnosed with what’s classified as a head and neck cancer I don’t want to go into it further publicly until I can process it better/write about it. ![]() I have a bit of personal bad news to share.
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