I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star by Judy Greer Read Free Book Online

touched the Mary statue. A miracle! And ever since, people have traveled from near and far to get a few drops (or a bottleful) of the holy water that runs out of a tap on the side of the church. When I got a little older and was allowed to watch scary devil movies, I realized that this echoey building of faith, art, and history could provide a lot more than just comfort for the tired, weary, and faithful. It could be a place of paranormal murder, and I suddenly started to like going to church a lot more. I pretended that a gust of wind was going to slam the carved wooden doors shut and lock us all in. That all at once the candles would flicker, extinguish, then light again! I pretended that no one was in the choir loft when there was singing and organ music. But the best part of all was the basement. Because there were so many miracles related to OLC and churches like to show off to their parishioners and the Vatican, there are glass boxes that line the perimeter of this basement prayer room, filled with discarded crutches, braces, helmets, gurneys, cabinet after cabinet of devices that were no longer required by the infirm. I’m sorry, but it’s creepy. The few cabinets that don’t store proof of miracles house the many dresses of Our Lady. Oh yes, she has more dresses than I do. She’s fickle and gets to change clothes depending on the holiday, time of year, if she gets dirty. I don’tknow the ins and outs of why/how/when Mary gets a new dress, but it’s really impressive to see the racks and racks of little outfits. I’ve always been a bit jealous.
    I eventually got more interested in my real life than my fantasy life while sitting through Mass in Carey. The altar boys became better eye candy than the stained-glass windows (the altar boys who weren’t related to me, that is; sometimes I had to ask my mom if one was a first or second cousin, just to be sure). And when I went off to college, I stopped making it back for the Carey Christmas. Now that I’m all grown up, working and traveling so much, I hardly make it back there at all; usually my parents come out to see me. But in a lot of ways, I consider Carey one of my homes. I never felt like I totally belonged there, because I wasn’t cut from its cloth, but I was the next-best thing, and when I do make it back, I always make sure to go to the shrine. I’m not a practicing Catholic anymore, but I like to light a candle anyway and think about one of the many miracles in my life: Carey, Ohio.

My First Pube
    A THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY IS A VERY IMPORTANT BIRTHDAY for a young girl—well, it was for me. I was finally going to become a teenager. My dad told me that when I turned thirteen, I could buy the teen mags at the drugstore, like
Teen Beat, Tiger Beat
, and basically anything with boys on the cover and the word “beat” in the title. Being thirteen meant I was three years closer to being sixteen, which was just two years away from being eighteen, and then, before I knew it, I would be twenty-one, which to me meant I was a grown-up! Once I turned thirteen, I was sure my hair would start to straighten, I would grow boobs, and Jeff Hunt, my adolescent crush (read: obsession), would fall in love with me. Spoiler alert: none of that happened. I don’t even remember if I was obsessing about pubic hair or not at the time. I had one goal and one goal only: BOOBS. Pubic hair you could lie about; boobs you could not. It was obvious when girls stuffed their bras—besides, what do you do in the summer at pool parties, assuming you get invited to them? How do you stuff a bathing suit? Duct tape and a couple of overripe plums? And if you can’t figure out how to stuff a bathing suit, how do you explain your sudden flatness? Weight loss? I needed boobs! Ones thatwould make boys (Jeff Hunt) notice me and offer to buy me a Slurpee. I was convinced that if I could just get a boy (Jeff Hunt) to walk with me to 7-Eleven and buy me a Slurpee, I could win him over with my charm