Hi. I'm Riri LeClaire. I'm going to college soon, but I'd rather drive a taxi or open a laundromat called Bubbles. I gave up on taxis because I'm a lady and it's a jungle out there; on the laundromat, because I'm lazy, and I don't like math.

The world is aslumber, but I have a flaming bladder infection. Too much sex! God, are you punishing me?

Last time I went to church was Easter, 1989, with my drunkard grandparents. Afterwards they took me to Pat's country club for brunch. I received a squeaky duckling and ate melon balls.

I once stumbled into a Roman taxi in the dead of night. My girlfriend and I had nowhere to be, and we faked moans as the driver unbuttoned us.

I once sat and spat chicken bones in the grass as an old woman dragged her dog's rear end along a lane. I did nothing to defend the yorkie.

Is it for these sins that bacteria are eating me alive?

The taxi driver gave me mini tissues when I expressed the need to urinate. Lemon vodka pee flooded the cobblestone cracks.

My latest squeeze supplies me with tissues. He aims to be a gentleman. He wants to bring me to his birthplace, Manfredonia, the kind of town where women churn butter. He says I'm intelligent, and beautiful.

I'm just a girl who masturbates with balled-up t-shirts and eats her boogers and serenades pigeons with tunes by Barry White. I'm not even sure whether Kosovo is a city or a country. I do not have cerebral palsy, although I have been told that I appear to when I laugh. I am not a glamour girl.

I do donate blood, but not to help humankind. I do it for fun. I like to squeeze the stress ball and don my bandage like a warrior.

If you're ever depressed, try donating. But don't even think about it if you've had sex with a man who's had sex with another man since 1977, or if you've lived in Cameroon.

All my friends back home were girls, virgins from broken families who wore ballooning t-shirts in the swimming pool. We never drank, but we listened compulsively to Ol' Dirty Bastard.

Once we scored an abandoned shopping cart. We ran Donna down the street as she crouched inside, blowing a whistle and whirling a broken lightbulb in the air. The cart crashed and she tumbled out, still grinning.

It's 4 a.m., and only the mutant birds are singing. In the glorious light of morning, I'll find a potion to kill my bacteria. I will feel sorry to crash their wonderful party.

My parents used to party, and they found a guest named Chuckie swirling red feathers over the crib. This must have been my christening.

As a child, I rode the family dog like a horse. I put my kitten in a coffee can and sent her spinning round the record player. I called my enemies penis hair. My vision was a Medusa of penises.

SCHAUMBURG, ILLINOIS: A TRAVELER'S TALE

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