Excerpt from High on Arrival
PAGE 2
Then I flipped to the index and looked to see if I was in it. There I was: "Phillips, Laura Mackenzie." Under my name was a list of subheadings and page numbers. I scanned down the entries:
Phillips, Laura Mackenzie
acting career of...
arrested on drug charges...
attempts to clean out...
in California...
childhood of...
drug use by...
early childhood of...
at finishing school in Switzerland...
Jeff Sessler and...
marriage to Jeff Sessler...
Peter Asher and...
rape...
shipboard romance on QE 2...
There it was, my life to date, with highlights selected, cross-referenced, and alphabetized. I had been organized and reduced to a list of sensational and mostly regrettable and/or humiliating anecdotes. Being indexed, particularly under such dubious headings, gave me a weird feeling that definitely wasn't pride. I felt like I wasn't a real person, just a list of incidents and accidents. Whoever compiled that index-I'm pretty sure my father wasn't up to such a mundane and detailed task-was just doing his or her job, but it was cruelly reductive.
Phillips, Laura Mackenzie
acting career of...
arrested on drug charges...
attempts to clean out...
in California...
childhood of...
drug use by...
early childhood of...
at finishing school in Switzerland...
Jeff Sessler and...
marriage to Jeff Sessler...
Peter Asher and...
rape...
shipboard romance on QE 2...
There it was, my life to date, with highlights selected, cross-referenced, and alphabetized. I had been organized and reduced to a list of sensational and mostly regrettable and/or humiliating anecdotes. Being indexed, particularly under such dubious headings, gave me a weird feeling that definitely wasn't pride. I felt like I wasn't a real person, just a list of incidents and accidents. Whoever compiled that index-I'm pretty sure my father wasn't up to such a mundane and detailed task-was just doing his or her job, but it was cruelly reductive.
© Copyright 2009 by Shane's Mom Inc.
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