Why I Hate Fashion

Excerpt from my upcoming book "Aging Naked"]

​I was an infant when we moved into our home in Eagle Rock and I don’t recall ever having to make friends. I just had them. They’d always been there. But at the age of 11 or 12, I was plunged into a school environment with kids who seemed far older than myself. One moment I was in sixth grade exchanging friendship rings with my best friend after pricking our index fingers with a needle and pressing them together to create a blood-sister bond, and the next moment I was sitting at a shared table in Algebra class listening to adult-like teens swap stories of smoking pot and making out.

Shortly after starting at my new school, a girl in one of my classes asked about my ring and I proudly shared the story of its meaning—of two friends who forged a relationship over a lifetime of playing with Barbies, pledging their eternal commitment to remaining soul sisters. Of course, I didn’t say it quite so eloquently, but I did mention something about it being a friendship ring, and I know I mentioned that my friend was a girl. And that was enough for my new classmate to spread rumors throughout the school that I was a lesbian. It was 1972 and I had no idea what that word meant, but I know now that it was meant as an insult.

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