Alecia Whitaker Quotes

I start to feel like an empty canvas under the hands of Michelangelo. No! Like a swimmer who's gone out to far in the ocean being pulled back to shore by a fashion lifeguard.

Fuming, I reach for the stick at my feet; however, this is the precise moment that a small black garter snake slithers out in front of me. I do what any normal fourteen-year-old girl would do: scream my head off, dance in spastic horror, and throw my tobacco knife into the dirt-completely missing the snake. I look to Luke for help, but he's laughing hysterically, which really gets my already hot blood boiling. Wrists on sweaty forehead, breathing totally out of control, I walk around in a circle until the disgusting little reptile slithers away.
I am-offically-over it.

Ricki Jo," Momma says, "who's on the phone? Tell them it's past your bedtime."
I cover the receiver and look over my shoulder at my folks. Right. 'Cause a ten o'clock bedtime is something I want to shout from the mountaintops.

They all babble on about "state" and "formations" and "tumbling" while I smile and nod. When in doubt, smile and nod.

Wolf apparently holds me to some kind of moral standard that he himself doesn't even observe but thinks I should.

He looks like the sexiest idiot I've ever seen.

His green-flecked brown eyes twinkle, and we laugh together, easy and light. He opens the door for me, and I say goodbye, floating over to where my family waits in our Winnebago. And I can't tell you if my feet actually touch the ground, because at this very moment, this Bird, well, she flies.

I am very self-conscious as I step over the backpacks strewn in the aisle. Do not fall.Do not fall.

She is waiting for me when I step outside of school at the end of the day, her sturdy frame standing by the passenger door of my papaw's small truck, waving. Yes,waving-ildly, with both arms in the air,and catching herself on the door when she loses her balance.
Mortified,I attempt a nonchalant wave to the other girls on my squad. Practice actually went well today.I like the girls and I'm on top of all the pyraminds, which is cool.
What is not cool is my grandmother shouting my name and motioning at me like an escaped mental patient who has taken a day job landing planes.I sprint over to their truck, which is parked diagonally across to handicapped spots, as quickly as I can.
"I'm here, gosh! Stop yelling," I say.
"Comee here, baby," she says, and before I know it, she's pressing me against her massive bosom in a bear hug, slapping my back and cooing into my ear. "You're Mamaw's baby, ain't ya? Yes, Mamaw's sure happy to see you."
There is no escape.Because I am too short and scrawny and no match for her brute grandchild-love strength, I wait it out.

For one thing,I have school tomorrow. Two,my right leg is still in Sasquatch mode.

Then I think about Photoshopping a picture of Wolf and me together in the yearbook: Best Couple.In your face, mysterious ponytailed wench.

Asking Wolf to couples' skate is like bungee jumping without a cord-it may be the bravest thing I've ever done in my life.
Or it could be the stupidest.
There's only one way to find out.
I look him dead in the eyes, summoning up both my courage and my sense of reckless abandon, but before I can even speak one syllable-
"Oh!" he says, looking over one shoulder and dropping his hands. "Kaitlyn's free now. I gotta get over there!"
He rushes off, blowing me an air kiss.
My mouth should get used to falling open when he's around, either from his good looks or from his total lack of comprehension of all things polite. Did that just happen?
My face in my palms, I lean on my elbows against the rail, invisible, and fall into an intoxicating state of self-pity.

Like,I didn't realize that the sportswriter is actually Mayor Green's son.That makes him the biggest celebrity I've ever met,which I do recognize as totally pathetic.

I'm second string to a true, actual, just-moved-here new girl. Mackenzie's from Minnesota, says her O's in a really weird way, and already has more friends than I do.

I see a human form coming toward me, arms outstretched. Assuming that form to be naked, I duck and back up so as not to get groped by one of my zombie friends,only to back my bare heinie into someone else.
"Ahh!" Mackenzie screams.
"Ahh!" I scream right back.
Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh. My eyes are adjusting, and I see that all five of us are jumping up and down and screaming. We would usually hug or fall into some kind of laughing pileup in this kind of situation,but in our current state, we insteadt sort of cover our chests with one forearm and slap at the air in front of us with the other. Then we all start shushing one another, terribly afraid of waking up anyone else in the house.
Kimi opens the door to the family room and we peek out. No sign of human life in the kitchen. I spooked myself in there only a few minutes ago, and now I'm about to run headlong into this very same nightmare naked. What is wrong with me?

I play it cool.
"Uh,yeah, I think so," I say, furioously kicking my feet in the air. "You?"
"Yeah,it should be pretty fun," he says.
"Yeah,it should be," I say.
Pause,pause,pause,heartbeat racing. I can't catch my breath.
"You know who you're going with?" he asks.
I'm sorry,but OH.MY.GOD.
"Nah," I say, pulling off nonchalance like a pro. "You know me; it's hard to choose when half the school is beating down my door."
He chuckles. "I don't doubt it."
Beat down my door, Wolf. Beat it down right now.I'll say yes!

He makes lookin' good seem effortless. Like, he lives in that lookin'-good zone. I think I'll wear a long white gown and a short veil, and he and his groomsmen will wear sharp charcoal tuxedos. We'll get married on my farm and-
"No, it's Ericka. She doesn't want to be called Ricki Jo anymore," I hear Mackenzie remind Laura.
Oh,god. Wolf is looking right at me, wearing a lopsided, perfect, melt-me-into-a-pool-on-my-seat grin.

And then-
The lights are on.My first reaction is the lack of one. I'm too stunned. One second later, though, I hit the deck, pulling at the blankets below me and shielding my eyes.

I guess he sees the mortified look on my face-Can I get a little bedside manner here?-because he awkwardly pats the sides of my arms and tried to smile.

And Seriously,I'm still small enough to totally destroy everyone at hide and seek. Lame? Or kind of awesome? You decide.

Some people live life asking for forgiveness instead of permission.

It was awful," I tell Luke at his locker. It's on the other side of the hall and I really feel like the air is cleaner over here or something. I almost suffocated trying to stuff my book bag into my own locker, squeezed right between Kimi and her voluptuousness and Wolf and his sexual-awakening-me-ness.

My Best Friend Forever likes my True Love Always!
"Oh,brother, I'm glad these things are secret,or he'd never get his jersey over his big head," Sarah grumbles.

Well, I don't know," he starts, looking down and then up again, anywhere but at me. "Like, for example, your new clothes, it's like a whole new you. You dress more like those girls now."
"I just want to look nice!" I defend myself.
"No,not that that's a bad thing, Ricki Jo!" he says, glancing down at me and then back over his shoulder. "You look great. Really pretty, actually.Just, you didn't care before and you were still"-he stammers on-"y-you know...pretty.

I want to die or be trapped on a deserted island with David Wolfenbaker. One or the other, but I've got to get out of homeroom.

Obsessing over a boy makes the time fly.

It's clearing up."
"Yeah.But work's boring without you there to complain about it," he teases.

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I turn to go, not wanting to be late, and almost run into a tray full of mystery meat.
"Where you going?" Wolf asks, his confident grin slipping. "I was about to join y'all."
"Take my place,then," I say coldly. "Poor substitute, but whatever.

Lying there, looking up at the stars, I took a few major cuss words out for a test drive before I started to cry.

Hello?" I say nonchalantly, as if I don't have one leg cocked up and bleeding or an overbearing mother sucking all the air out of the room.

In our opinion, Coke is great from a can, still good from a bottle, yet hard to get just right from the fountain. But oh, when they do get it right, it tastes good enough to be an eighth wonder of the world.

Squished between my grandparents and moving at thirty miles an hour is a small price to pay to get to the vet's office, but today Luke begged to come along, so Papaw is driving even slower than usual. With Luke hunched don behind us in the bed of the truck, obviously without a seat belt, Mamaw keeps her eye on the odometer and yells about "precious cargo" every time the needle nears twenty.

Yeah, we've got a few stoplights, but I personally think they're just for show. Stop signs usually do the trick. Breckinridge, Kentucky. The epicenter of Nowheresville, USA.

Not "I'm sorry,Ericka," or "I suck," or "I lost all the feeling in my fingers and couldn't dial a telephone." Nothing!
I can't believe what I'm hearing.In fact, I can't believe what I'm not hearing.

Nothing sexy," interjects Momma, the ever-present buzz skill.

Then you've got the kids who live within a mile of the school and can walk home. Although this may not sound glamorous, it still beats my place on the totem pole: the bottom. Yes, we of the bus routes find ourselves in a general throng outside the auditorium, where all who pass may mock us.We look forward to an hour-long ride of picking up and dropping off loud middle schoolers and louder elementary kids and peeling our hamstrings off the pleather seats over and over again in the heat.

I lean up on my elbows and see Luke and Bessie,who trump both the stick and me as Bandit races toward them, Bessie already running in the opposite direction.She's got a good game of hard to get going on,and Mr. Needy Dog is suddenly all "Ricki Jo who?" (He can call me that-we have history.)

That's stupid," Luke says sharply, totally out of character, and shoots Laura a look that makes her flush red. "First of all, she's not ugly-pretty, she's just normal pretty. What a dumb thing to say. And second, she's different from the average girl 'cause she doesn't even need makeup."
Silence. Luke looks down at his arm and twirls the leather strap around his wrist. I nudge him, and when he looks up at me, I mouth Thank you, not trusting my voice since an unexpected lump has found its way to my throat.

Whenever I see my teachers out in the real world I clam up, get a sort of weird feeling, and look for the nearest exit.

I've never seen you flip the bird, RJ," Luke says.
I can't stop the little smile that creeps up onto my lips.I really don't know what came over me.I've never been the vixen.I'm always one hundred percent good girl.
"Yeah,it felt weird.And wrong. And awesome."
"Well,you're lucky Mr. Bates didn't see you.Principles usually frown on that kind of sign language." He laughs.
"Mr. Bates can suck it," I say defiantly.
"Whoa!" Luke replies and we both laugh. "Have you been watching wrestling with Ben again? Admit it, Ricki Jo. You love oiled-up fat guys in unitards."
"Ew!

We drive over the fields and the wind catches in my hair. I throw my arms back and face the sun.I feel like Leo in Titanic. 'Course, it only takes one pothole to snap me out of that little fantasy, and I hold on tight.

After thirty minutes of learning and rehearsing this routine, I've decided to never show my aforementioned self-taught moves to the public. Today's dance style seems to involve a dash of bump and a cup of grind, with a heavy dose of attitude...ingredients I haven't incorporated before. Not having cable television can really keep a girl out of the loop.

I have never seen him before, but I am convinced that the boy grinning at us from an arm's length away must have materialized directly from my head as the ultimate man of my dreams.

Oh,you talking to me now?" I ask.
"What?" he aks innocently, his cocoa eyes ide. "You noticed my silencio treatment in Spanish class?" He takes his shot,sinking it.
"Yeah,I noticed when I had to do Actividad twenty-to by myself,as both waiter and customer," I say, catching the ball and passing it back to him.

Oh, great.Round two of Knowing Your Body, By Debbi Winstead.