Drafting Class
by: Katie
First day of middle school, I had to sign on the dotted line for my rule book-- A Series of Invisible Lessons: How to Be a Real Girl.
My Guidance Counselor chews on her pencil eraser when she thinks I'm not looking. A nervous woman, she shuffles me into her office, hand on the small of my back, just before third hour during registration week.
This, and furrowed brows and empathetic head-nodding make me suspect I'm in trouble. Then, several sentences in one long sigh: "Oh, sweetie. You must have accidentally signed up for Drafting. That class will be filled with boys. Wouldn't you be happier in an Art class?"
She's hopeful. This has all been a mistake. I'll come to my senses and realize that girls aren't supposed to want to build.
I'm thirteen with that kind of untarnished optimism that sticks around until people start saying, "can't," "don't," "shouldn't," "wouldn't." I've been drawing floor plans since I was a kid, rearranging my parents' furniture when they're at work. I built an igloo in my front yard when I was ten-- took till Spring for that thing to finally melt!
I register for the classes I want. She ushers me into the hallway muttering, "... and such a nice girl. Such a quiet girl..."
I rush home from school to tell my Dad, the engineer, about my new class schedule. He buys me a brand new mechanical pencil-- the expensive kind that doesn't make scratch marks on the paper. "Someday you're gonna build me and your Mom a house, Kal," he tells me.
First day of class, and I've got eyes like Possibility. I swing my feet off the edge of the metal stool 'cause they don't quite touch the ground; Head on the slant-top wooden desk, fist clenched around my new pencil, squinted eyes, concentrate, concentrate.
This class is hard! And I love to watch my ideas translate from mind to paper to reality. When I get older and have a job, I want to work with my hands. I want to make what I see real. I want to create.
End of the semester comes quick, and I just know I got an 'A.' I've been turning my work in early, helping other students who don't quite understand. I'm a perfectionist-- no eraser marks on my assignments.
I'm last in line for grades, trying to get my final project just right. When it's my turn, other students, all boys, are still milling around my teacher, Mr. Blanzy's office-- comparing grades, talking about the weekend.
I watch his face change. That forehead wrinkle, like disapproval, appears, and I feel suddenly like an outsider. He clears his throat, motions me closer, and puts one big, heavy hand on my right shoulder. "Now, don't you tell me I didn't warn you not to wear those tight black pants," he says, winking at the boys. "You little distraction. Now take this note to your parents. You got a B+ in the class."
His hand is fire, burning, burning. My face is red and I'm running, running out of that classroom, down the hall, down the stairs, burst out the school door and don't stop till I'm on my front porch, hot tears, finally, from my eyes.
I crumple his note, and don't show it to my parents until years later.
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Livingston,
Despite multiple warnings, your daughter has refused to comply wtih the dress code of my classroom. Her inappropriate attire is a distraction and a detriment to the rest of the class, and to this end, her final grade will be lowered one mark.
Signed, Dick Blanzy"
I do create now, but with words. I stack them like bricks, like defenses against the idea that my body will ever be more important than my mind.
If I was thirteen still, I'd tell myself to never let them see me cry. And that most of those boys would never get out of Downriver. And that I'd eventually learn about Feminism and save my own life.
Most of all, I'd tell myself to keep dreaming ideas into reality, and someday
march right back into that classroom and tell Mr. Blanzy that he really is a
big dick.
June 27, 2006