Ninth grade Earth science was for the birds. Layers of soil and the Earth’s core and magnetic fields. Science never made sense to me. You were always having to prove yourself. We had to do an experiment each semester and the teacher gave us the scientific method to follow–hypothesis, materials, conclusion. Everything required data. Everything had to be measured.

I went through phases back then. Did my own experiments. I tried to see how small I could make myself. I would fold into shapes, some odd chunky platform shoes and butterfly hair clips. Bra-strap chokers. I loved to wear an oversized Adidas t-shirt. It was long and black and I thought I could get away with it, shrink myself into its extra large sleeves. But then Robert Robertson started loudly proclaiming that “Adidas” stood for “All Day I Dream About Sex” and everyone kept on laughing, so I stopped wearing it. The angles were never right, no matter how hard I tried.

The ninth grade Earth science project I chose was to track the movement of the moon–pock-marked and rough-faced. A silver disc hurled into the night like a shot put. I would measure its arc across the sky in my grandparents’ backyard. They lived next door, and it was the best place to observe the moon. It was where my grandfather grew all his crops, flowers with leaves coated in light. I could sit in the grass by myself in the middle of the deep dark night and people wouldn’t ask, “Hey what are you doing out here?” or “Why don’t you come inside?” My grandparents knew I was the weird one—the nerd—pock-marked and rough-faced. My grandmother would come out and stand with me sometimes.

“Which phase is that?” she’d ask.

“Waning gibbous,” I’d say.

“Waning, like disappearing,” she said, and I thought about that for a bit.

I wore a skirt one day to school and Nicole Perkins said, “That’s a pretty skirt,” and after I said “Thank you,” she said, “Too bad your face doesn’t match.” Then I went to English class with my cheeks flushed real red as if everyone saw what had happened. We were reading “The Lady, or the Tiger?” but all I could think about was my big nose, my unruly bangs, and my acne. I didn’t wear a skirt again for the rest of middle school, and my mom would say, “Why don’t you wear a skirt ever?” but there are some things you can’t talk to other people about. It’s just too embarrassing or overwhelming or makes you feel terrible all over again.

I measured the degrees of the moon with a protractor. Sometimes I thought about knocking that moon right out of the sky, a softball I’d smack with a bat and send flying to another town or another state or somewhere further in the galaxy. I drew up diagrams with sketches of the moon–some bulbous and bright, some thin and curved like a cat’s claw. A lot of people think about crescent moons, but the waxing gibbous really got me going. Almost full but not quite. The shape of an eye. Glass halfway there. Convex not concave.

And naturally there are times when you can’t see the moon. Void of its course. Guided not by light, but by darkness. Some witches swear it’s the only time you can do nefarious things and not get caught by the universe. Where the soul up in the moon gives you a pass and turns its back to whatever you’re doing. It’s nice to think there are things you can get away with like cursing on the bus to seem cool.

In sixth grade during English class Arthur Haughey asked me what my favorite album was and I rushed to think of one. I blurted out that it was Dookie by Green Day and he asked me to name one song from it because he didn’t believe me. I knew all the songs and had committed to listening to it every day for just this type of instance, but I froze up and couldn’t name one on the spot like he’d asked. “That’s what I thought,” he said. It wasn’t enough to just like something, you had to prove it. Like science.

I wonder if there is a time when the moon gets tired of people watching and inspecting it, saying prayers to it, writing poems about it. We all need rituals but at what cost? Lucky stars aren’t as prevalent as everyone implies, and there is no man in the moon. No small step for mankind. It’s just younger me trying to make it to Earth science on time and without incident. Pock-marked, rough-faced. It’s just a phase, they all said. But I’m still making sure people aren’t looking at me, still worried that distant laughter is about my skirt, still looking at the moon, jealous of its finite cycles. Science never made sense to me though. Some things you just can’t measure.