We're a generation of thugs, you can't play with us. We've been lied to, enslaved and beaten up.

So here's a funny story.

I am reading this book in my english class, a novella really, not a real book book, called The Gift. It is by some lady who just calls herself H.D. which stands for Hilda Doolittle but she is just known as H.D. I like that. Although for some reason when I look at it I think of all sorts of disgusting things that H.D. could stand for. You do the math.

The book is a modernist kind of a book. It is an autobiographical book but it is written sort of stream of consciousness-like and from the author as a child's point of view. It is really good. Anyway, there is this part where the mother tells the daughter briefly about this Spanish Student she knew before H.D.'s father. We were talking in class about how it is kind of inappropriate for the mother to be telling a young daughter about some romantic trist and how children can interpret things interestingly and all sorts of other things about a child's point of view. All of a sudden I remembered when I was a little girl I used to think that this man at the grocery store was my mom's ex-boyfriend from before she was married to my dad. I thought this because I had overheard my mom or someone talking about one of my mom's ex-boyfriends, Dennis. And the guy a the grocery store's name was Dennis. And I just connected the two together. I would watch very closely their interactions and try to see evidence of their past relationship. Sometimes I think I would imagine a wink or a nod, that sort of thing.

I remember also, maybe a few years later, thinking that it was a good thing she didn't marry him. He is a grown man who works at a grocery store. I remember thinking he was kind of a loser. Also, once I understood the concept that my mom and dad weren't from Yreka, which probably took longer than one might expect, I remember thinking it was strange that they should both end up in the same town when they must have known each other either when my mom lived in Michigan or when my mom lived in San Mateo. Probably San Mateo. I remember all of these things seeming weird to me but I don't remember the exact time that I realized that this Dennis at the grocery store is not the same Dennis who was my mom's ex-boyfriend. I was probably 6, 7, or 8 or so during this time. I was 9 when I stopped believing in Santa Clause. I held on to a lot of things longer than a lot of kids probably did. One often told story in my family regarding myself that I don't personally remember is when my aunt graduated from law school. Our family all went to her graduation and the president or some big wig guy from the law school asked me if I wanted to go to Law School and be a lawyer just like my aunt. My reply, I am told, is that I couldn't because there is no law school in Yreka. I think I had a very hard time conceptualizing time and space outside of Yreka when I was young. So my mom's boyfriend being the guy at the grocery store was the only possible explanation since there was no where outside of where I was.