Just A Girl November 9, 2007

My parents planned to name me Alex had I been born a boy.
 
Having this name ready, I’m confident, was my father’s attempt to will his first born to be a son.
 
But I wasn’t born a boy. And neither was my sister who is two years younger than me, nor my baby sister who is eight years my junior. I like to think of her as my father’s last stand.
 
I’ve always maintained the belief that had my father been born a son, life would have been a hell of a lot easier for our family.
 
Namely me.
 
Maybe I’m wrong. Having a son could have made my father an even stricter disciplinarian. Made him expect even more from the XY chromosomed offspring. Made it even more tempting to live vicariously through his child. Made it impossible for his son to become anything but a brooding asshole without that delicate female touch.
 
Or maybe having a son would have made my father feel like he had a compatriot in a family of all females, a son to take golfing and run errands with and teach the overwhelming nuggets of knowledge in his brain. My father’s abilities of retention had always left me amazed as a child. I sure as hell couldn’t go to him for a hug after falling down or to gush all about my latest tween crush, but I knew that if I needed to know something about anything – the name of Plato’s dog, why e had to equal mc², the color of Queen Elizabeth’s eyes, whatever - my dad would know it and happily – oh, too happily – impart.
 
Most importantly, a son would have also meant someone to share the “protect and provide” burden my father shouldered, something I imagine he developed while growing up in a country that had recently been war-torn and lost a million of its citizens, an estimated 85% of them civilians. One of those one million citizens included his real father, my true grandfather – a very buried family secret I learned only a few years ago. One I’m not ready to provide elucidation on just yet.
 
Who knows. Unless reincarnation is the rule of the afterlife, and the heavenly host(ess) decides I have to return as a son to my father, this is nothing more than my musings on a massive “What if” conundrum.
 
So growing up, I became the one who played golf with my dad. I went on errands with him. I learned a fragment of the overwhelming information in my father’s brain. I played three sports every year during high school. I was instructed to run miles until I dropped in exhaustion whenever he thought I displayed weakness. One night in high school, I ran for two hours, as my dad followed me in his car. I was physically reprimanded if I dared cry in front of my dad. He hated liars and cowards and he made damn sure his children knew it.
 
I was the son my father never had. Literally.
 
My father never started calling me Alex or had my hair cut short or told my mother to dress me in all blue and ask for the boy’s toy during our annual trips to McDonald’s when I was ordered milk with my Happy Meal. Wilted fries and a single cheeseburger with warm milk did not a happy meal make. But I digress (damsel-ly?). There are plenty of memories in my eroding brain of ballet classes, Barbie dolls, and adamant refusal to attend Tae Kwon Do (yes, Tae Kwon Do) classes to know that I had my fair share of girlie childhood experiences.
 
However, while the other little girls ran off to Cinderella on Ice or Paula Abdul Before She Developed a Case of the Shakes to Display on National TV, I dutifully followed my father to basketball and football games. Attending sports events together was a rare opportunity for us to combine our acerbity and direct it towards a common enemy: the visiting team, the referees, our team, the coach, other fans … everyone but one another.
 
Knowing so much about sports when I was a little girl wasn’t too well-received though. I once interrupted two boys who were yelling (incorrect) facts about two professional basketball teams on the schoolbus en route to our grade school. The boys paused, then taunted, “What do you know, you’re just a girl!” The same boys who later (in life, not later that day) jizzed at the fact that a girl who looked and acted like a girl could give insight into who should start as quarterback for the local college football team (because let’s face it, sharing time between two quarterbacks never works) or who would be drafted first by the NBA that year.
 
Chicago is nothing like my hometown in the middle of (kind of) nowhere and there’s a lot more to entertain myself with than sports. Even if Chicago does boast 5-7 professional sports teams (I debate whether soccer or women’s basketball should count). The availability of free will and disappearance of the immigrant father has led to the alcohol-fueled deterioration of my brain, and it’s become more entertained by inane celebrity gossip than the latest sports stats. In other words, fuck the efficiency of the West Coast Offense, I just want to know which celebrities are Just Like Us! I’m not completely convinced this is an XY vs. XX issue – I’ve caught many boyfriends, who have mocked my guilty indulgence of celebrity gossip, reading my US Weeklys. Because let’s face it, We Like Trainwrecks! That’s how I’ve always explained interest in me.
 
This isn’t meant to be a commentary on gender roles. Girls can be everything and whatever the fuck they want to be, and they can like whatever the fuck they want to like, and including my comment about women’s basketball up there (Ed. note: I did make fun of soccer as well), everything I say should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt (accompanied by a shot of tequila and a lime). There is no standard a female should measure herself against, and no expectations she should feel she needs to fill except those that she places on herself. To my father’s defense, he never said he wished he had a son or that I was a boy. Or maybe he has and I’ve just done a really good job of repressing that particular memory.
 
The foundation for my contradictory-and-multiple-personality disorder can most likely be attributed to my father. Because for a man who wouldn’t let me go to sleepovers as a young girl because you not hear about girl who get strangled at sleepover? She go to party and she get killed – just sleeping inside Snoopy sleeping bag and then killed! Maybe if you a boy then okay but you a girl so you sleep on floor at home if you want to, daughter, he sure as hell taught me that I could beat anyone, male or female, at anything as long as I wanted it more. His odd mix of empowerment lessons included telling me I would be the first female president while also warning me that man can be stronger and you not even take tae kwon do!
 
Naturally, I can’t help but wonder if my dad would have lightened up were I a boy, but I don’t think he believes a male is more capable. I don’t think he believes a male has more worth than a female and thank God that in my mixed bag of fucked up issues extraordinaire, troubled self-esteem about being a female and/or misogynistic attitudes aren’t included because nothing irritates me more than a girl who declares she just loves misogyny! While I am all for a woman who knows what she wants, please don’t fucking say things just for shock value (I’m also looking at you, Ann Coulter, who proves that hell really is other people). If a woman wants to stay at home and raise children, then more power to her. And I know that sometimes, some women just don’t have a choice. By the very fact that they are doing something out of necessity shows integrity.
 
I recall a string of muggings and attempted rapes that fouled my college campus one quarter, and, as a result, emails were sent that included a message that girls in particular should be careful when roaming the campus streets very late at night. And I remember that some girls were very offended and purposely walked alone late at night as a Fuck You I can Walk Alone If I Want To! And I remember that I was slightly offended as well, because let’s face it, women of my generation have been taught that we don’t need no man protecting us, uh uh *finger snap*. But then I realized that these warnings of being more careful aren’t demeaning. They’re accurate. Yes, it fucking sucks that girls have to be more careful when walking alone late at night, but it sure as hell fucking beats getting raped.
 
Because being a girl means being aware. It doesn’t mean being a man, whatever the fuck that means. It doesn’t mean disregarding all female norms simply to disregard them or playing into sexist roles in the quest to show how womanly you are. Sometimes it means following sports until you realize that you’re at a point in your life where you have approximately 1 hour all to yourself when you’re not working or sleeping and all you really want to do is watch America’s Next Top Model and delight in all its trashiness. No apologies. Would this make my father proud? Obviously fucking not. But I don’t really give a shit because, in a round-about fucking way, my father raised me to be proud of myself, the unintentional result of him harassing me my entire childhood and forcing me to always stand up to him.
 
On my way to the bathroom back in the spring, I was stopped by a male co-worker who wanted to discuss our brackets for the NCAA Tournament, about Southern Illinois’s chances of beating Kansas and how badly both our brackets would fare if Georgetown didn’t do well. Some ten minutes into the conversation, I glanced down, something screaming for my attention out of the corner of my eye. And poking out of my boot for the world to see was my white and green polka dotted tampon (Thank you, Tampax Pearl) clashing oh-so-noticeably against my caramel brown boot. Oh hell.
 
Why was there a tampon in my boot? Because I was wearing a dress and with no obvious places to hide the item in question, i.e. up my sleeve or in a pocket, my boot seemed like a safe option. Why didn’t I just bring my purse? Because I clearly like setting myself up for moments like these.
 
I attempted to inconspicuously push the tampon back into my boot, raising my other foot and using my toe to appear as though I was scratching my calf. When that didn’t work, I casually bent over sideways and jammed the damn tampon back into my fucking boot with the subtlety of Donald Trump’s hair. My male co-worker glanced down and, after a look of recognition, snapped his head upright and stuttered for at least 5 more minutes about why he regretted having Wisconsin go all the way to the Final Four. I think he felt like he had to engage in conversation longer to prove that seeing the tampon did not make him uncomfortable.
 
So that’s my life (or at least this post) in a nutshell. The fates making me their plaything at any opportunity? Sure. Talking about sports while being reminded that I’m just a girl? Of course.
 
But being proud of being a female means being able to embrace all the fucking shit that goes along with being a girl, embarrassing stories tout inclus. I don’t give a fucking rat’s ass if being a boy would have made my life easier when it comes to my dad. I love being a girl. So I thank the fucking heavens I’m not a boy named Alex.
 
Even if that means that sometimes, I’ll be caught with a tampon sticking out of my boot.