5 things I learned in Texas (part 1)

Before last week it had been quite some time since I had last been to Texas. The first trip I rode in the back of a mini van where the middle seat had been removed and replaced with blankets and pillows to form a sort of makeshift bed on the floor. We somehow rigged a TV/VCR to the center console (this was, of course, before the time when mini vans came standard with flatscreen televisions and sattelite cable channels). We were on our way to Longview. There was candy, games, movies, fighting, whining, my sister and our cousin Katelyn. This time there was cigarettes, books, music, discussions, whining, my best friend Adam and our good friend Ryan. Laptops replaced the ghetto TV. There was no middle seat to take out of Adam’s Jetta. Redbull replaced the Slurpee. But the state, the Nation of Texas was the same.

Five things I learned from Trip #1 (in retrospect):

1. McDonald’s used to have exciting toys in their happy meals. Kate, Brooke and I accumulated quite the collection of beautiful miniature Barbies. Now days Mickey D’s throws some Furby key-chain in the bottom of the bag. Boring. Nothing pretty about that. No hair to meticulously comb. Not even an hour’s worth of fun. Nothing you will remember 18 years later in life and feel compelled to write about.

2. It is quite appropriate to hang the dirty underwear on the doorknob of your bedroom. Back at the time in which we discovered such an act I think I gagged. Gross. Grandma Pie’s grundies were preventing my departure from her bedroom (and I had more than a few mini barbies to urgently get back to… in the van). But I am rethinking that notion, now. I have a tendency to toss dirty clothes on the floor, including yesterday’s undies. Can you imagine the embarrassment if one (or more) pair attaches itself to the jeans that are also on the floor that I choose to wear to school? How does one prevent such an occurrence? Answer: hang ‘em on the doorknob. G.Pie, you were a genius.

3. Deep fry the deep fried goods. Not once, but twice. Does it need warming? Just pop it in the deep fat fryer for a few. Good as good gets. Greasy as greasy gets. Now eat your okra.

4. Never under any circumstance sleep in a Rambo sleeping bag. Not only is it humiliating to an established Barbie lovin’ little peanut of a girl to be seen wrapped up in the colossal arms of a gun totin’, bullet belt slingin’, camo wearin’, testosterone overdosin’ dude, it is also likely that the sleeping bag will smell of pee. Not just any pee, mind you, but old pee. And lots of it. I don’t care that it only cost you a nickel at Jimmy’s son’s garage sale, Aunt Kate, you were NOT a genius.

5. My blood is their blood too. It is my sister’s blood that we share with our mother. Her’s is the blood she shares with her sister, who passed her’s on to our cousin. Their blood is the blood of their mother, who got her’s from Pie, who shares her’s with Kate. Their blood is the same blood that their mother and father poured into the land. Texas has our blood too. I wouldn’t swap it with anyone else’s blood. It’s true, you know, it is thicker than water. But our blood is even thicker than that. It is thicker than Texas crud oil. Thicker than the fryer’s fat.

Hello world!

If all the world is a stage, then I have spent the better part of my life enjoying my cheap seat up in the balcony. Some would disagree wholeheartedly with that statement, as I have always been the loud one in any given group in any given way. And yes, I have given performances of melodramatic proportions that would give Katharine Hepburn a run for her Oscars. But the times I have felt the most right with myself have been the years I sat quietly (well, as quietly as my big mouth allowed) watching it all unfold and keeping private notes.

 For as long as I have existed I have always been two things:

First, a writer.
Not necessarily a profound writer, nor ever a prodigy of the English language, but I was one who wrote. Diaries, journals, letters, poems, stories. The first time I can remember sitting down to write was in a small pink diary given to me by someone (with prophetic abilities?) at a birthday party where I was turning an age where I still had birthday parties and still appreciated the color pink. I sat down at my desk and wrote an entry about my desire to have a good education. I sat at that desk with my dull pencil for the better part of an hour painstakingly forming the letters I had only recently learned to form and carefully “sounding out” my way through “education” (which came out more like “ejukashun”). I wrote it down and it suddenly felt real. It was the first glimpse of what I would come to understand as ”writing to survive.” A year or two later Jean and Lou, my parent’s long-time friends, bought Brooke and I matching unicorn journals for Christmas. Jean had written in the front cover of mine, ”Ashley, Now you have somewhere to write all those terrible things about your parents…” My mom, upon reading this line aloud to me, stopped to half scoff, half laugh a little. I didn’t understand why that would make her pause, perhaps because I was already privately thinking “But, I already have something to write those terrible things in…” These would not be my last two journals. I have kept one continuously since then and have come quite far from writing “terrible” things about my parents, though I must admit my education continues to claim more than it’s fair share of pages.

The second thing I have always been is unapollogetically me. I have always been transparent, emotional, passionate, and conflicted. At times I am irreverent. More often than not I am outspoken and argumentative. I am opinionated. I am stubborn. I am selfish. I have crafted a sleeve out of the heart that refuses to reside anywhere else. I am human, to an unfortunate degree. I make mistakes more than I make corrections. I am a 24 year old with a blankie, and a running joke about it being the maid of honor at my future wedding (Can you imagine the look on my sister’s face upon learning that she would take a back seat to a dirty old pillowcase in my wedding? Or how about the bouquet toss that can only end in tears and shreds of blue fabric?). The most important aspect of my personality, I think, is that I simply refuse to be someone who hides. I am who I am because I posess each afformentioned personality trait (and then some) and never will I ever deny them because it is my honor to learn from them. I am, in no way, proud of everything I’ve done. I, in no way, believe in having “no regrets”. I am, however, proud of who I am becoming and that I can use those regrets to boost me up a rung on the ladder. This is my journey.

In tandem these two aspects of Ashley Rosalie Tippin result in what can only be described as an introspective word web of life as I know it. Now, I’ve moved from the plush red velvet balcony seat of observation to the unforgiving directors chair (and still, no one to fetch me coffee). I am going public with my affair with the pen and paper. Expect honesty. Expect it to be raw. Expect it to be real. Expect no apologies. I’m going to show you everything I know about being gigantic.