Make Mine Thalidomide

Once, when I was a kid, my dad had bought this doll for me and it was missing an arm and a leg, and he told me that it was my "thalidomide baby."

Being five, I had no idea what thalidomide was, and I'm sure that many people now are unfamiliar with it. Thalidomide (tha-lid-o-mide) was first marketed in Europe in the late 1950s. It was used as a sleeping pill and to treat morning sickness during pregnancy. At that time no one knew thalidomide caused birth defects. Then they started popping up. These birth defects included loss of limbs and fucked-up skulls and brain defects.

Regardless, I carried my baby around with pride and told everyone that it was my "Thalidomide baby" and I loved it. It was one of my favorite stuffed dolls. I had hundreds of stuffed animals and, at 25, I still will not let my mother get rid of them, although I know she secretly tries to sell them at garage sales and then throws them away. There's nothing I can do about it. It's tragic.

As part of my childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder, I'd assign personalities to inanimate objects, not only my dolls, but chairs and refrigerators and other weird appliances and things. And I still assign personalities to all of these stuffed animals that I had owned and played with as a child, so I can't bear to throw them away.

The "Thalidomide Baby" was of course a stuffed doll, since I hated all regular dolls and would put them in cages and throw them in the garbage. Dolls were for girls and I never considered myself a girl. In fact I would not allow anyone to refer to me as a "little girl"; I didn't want to be referred to as a "little boy" either. I knew I wasn't a fucking boy. So I decided "little guy" would be the best way to refer to me. Thus, I made my parents introduce me as their "little guy."

It must have looked weird, my parents calling me a little guy and all, but I was a weird child, and considering all the shit I was going through at the time, and how fucking weird my family was, it made sense. I still have problems thinking of myself as a "woman." I wish people would still refer to me as a guy or some non-gender-specific term, but there isn't one.

I know I'm a "woman." I have a pussy. I bleed every month. But I don't feel like a woman. I don't like shopping for shoes. I'm not happy that Star Jones has lost 600 pounds. I don't eat bonbons. And I hate women. But I hate men too. I like scum. I like shit. That's what I'm attracted to. Turds. Thalidomide babies. That doll I think shaped my whole life. My dad did so many things to mold me into the most socially awkward being, I can't believe I was ever even able to enter the real world.

The school system further alienated me by putting me in these "gifted" classes for smart kids who were all social retards, and I could never fit into any group. It was just as demeaning as being in the "retard" class. At least if I was fat or had some sort of physical disability I could understand why people thought I was so weird, but on the outside I looked normal. People just tried to stay away from me.

For one of my gifted classes, I did an in-depth study on McDonald's. I actually visited the first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, IL, and I made this crazy puppet show and educated everyone about McDonald’s.

The following year, I did a report on voodoo. Such a funny contradiction between the two subjects, but they are actually similar in a way. I don't want to turn this into some political essay or go on some diatribe about how McDonald's is its own religion, but that's what I mean. But my voodoo presentation caused some major controversy because I plastered the walls of this room with a bunch of photos of Haitian women with big floppy naked pancake titties doing voodoo rituals.

When the parents came to look at all the work their young children had done, they were forced to look at a lot of black-lady tits. But man, the tits weren't the point. I had done a lot of fucking research, but all of the damn pictures had fucking naked women in them. Still, my parents were proud.

I was always forced into these smart-kid classes and I hated it. Everyone else got to be in different classes with different people all day and I had to be with the same group of smarmy "smart kid" fucking rejects all the time. I didn't think I was better than any of them. I just hated them and thought they were all assholes. I can't complain, though, I guess. I grew up in suburbia.

Unfortunately I was just a little bit too old for the whole school-shooting fad, otherwise I think that would have brightened up my days a lot. I remember seeing the movie Heathers and I remember fanatically watching how Winona Rider and Christian Slater blow up their school, and I wished so badly that I could have a boyfriend who would help me do that.

There was a boy named Tom who had written his own manifesto. He was extremely intelligent. I believe he would have shot up the school but he was not interested in girls, and I think he'd have thought of a girl as a hindrance. He was very conceited, especially for someone who hated himself so much. I had myself made frequent and obsessive lists of whom I would kill and how I would do it. If it was three years later and the school found that shit out, I would have had to go to extensive stupid counseling.

This particular essay is all over the place, I know. I just decided to highlight some of the defining points of my life. I'm trying to figure out why I am the way I am. It's so bizarre, these events that I choose to remember so vividly that I guess I have chosen to forget about for so many years. I wish I could find my Thalidomide baby. It's disappeared. Maybe I'll find some psychotic Christian Slater type someday and we can have our own Thalidomide baby.