Me

Me

Name: Sloan Kettering McLellan

During my childhood, I have heard every joke available to be made about my joke. Really, it’s no surprise that I got married so young, if only so I could stop introducing myself as “Sloan Kettering, yes like the hospital, yes like the university.”

At the time of my birth, my mom’s last name was actually not Kettering, and so she wasn’t really thinking about the social stigma that my name would be. My dad wasn’t actually there for any damage control. What my mom was thinking about was that she was watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and that the main female character was Jennifer Grey, but if any child was going to be named after Jennifer Grey, it had to be from Dirty Dancing and no way was she going to name her baby “Baby,” and so she’d have to go with that other character, Sloan, with that actress that nobody really knows.



And then she called my dad, who had broken up with her and actually hadn’t even known she was pregnant. And he, Michael Kettering, came home, to try to make things work with my mom, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. But I imagine that there was a moment there when he thought to himself, “I cannot live with this woman. She named our daughter Sloan Kettering.”

Age: Eighteen (Also known as the age of legal adulthood, the time when I get my big-kid license, and when you can get married whether your parents agree to it or not.)

Hometown: New Jersey. I bounced around the state for the first several years of my existence (including the time before my birth) so I don’t feel like any of them really count as a hometown. By the time I was five, we’d moved to Atlantic Highlands, where we’d stayed throughout my years at school, because my parents were sure that I’d be scarred for life if they bounced me from school system to school system. Given my tenure at Henry Hudson Regional High School, I don’t think I would have been that scarred.

But then again, who knows? Maybe it was everything that went on there, the boredom in classes, the teachers that didn’t care, the teachers that did care, the kids who didn’t care—maybe it was all of that that made me not turn out as a beer-guzzling ne’er do well.

Parents: Michael and Alicia Kettering.

Happily married after twelve years together.

So here’s the gist of what went down: after my dad came back, my parents just lived together with their adorable, precious daughter, Sloan, just to see if it things were going to work out. Then, in some admittedly nice but unlikely fairy-tale scenario, they got married, but not until I was six.

Honestly, they could have just stuck it out for another year and been married under common law. It probably would have been cheaper than actually getting married with the whole wedding thing. (I have learned that weddings can be quite expensive, and are not worth the fuss, if the only thing you care about anyway is the marriage.) But that’s what the two of them wanted, and I got to be the flower girl, and that’s what six-year-old me wanted. So everyone got what they wanted, and now there’s an endearing family photo in the front hall of my mom in her dress, and me in my dress, and my dad looking so happy that every time you look at the picture you just expect his face to rip in half from all the smiling he was doing.

Sometimes Ian looked like that, in a more muted way, when he looked at me, and it made me feel pretty damn good. I couldn’t expect him to be as blatant about it as my dad was, since my dad was, on the whole, a much more obvious kind of guy. But I was okay with that, anyway.

Education: Graduate of Henry Hudson Regional High School.

Graduating Henry Hudson was probably one of the better days of my life. For one, I was done with high school. I don’t know who didn’t want to be done with high school by the time the end rolled around. Senioritis had been gnawing at the entire class since October. And Grandma Lissy and Grandpa Matt (Kettering) and Besta and Grandpa Mark (Toth) came from their respective homes, and I really thought that Grandma Lissy was going to cry, she looked so happy.

Nobody was happier when my parents got married than Grandma Lissy, because that officially made me the product of a sanctified union, no matter the timeline of said union. And maybe some kids would have been a little upset, knowing that their grandmothers refused to come visit when you were a product of sin, but it never really bothered me when I found this out at fourteen. Grandma Lissy was one very religious woman. Her pastor was her next-door neighbor and she attended church every day. On Sundays, she went twice. Grandma Lissy was just like that.

Occupation: Driver, manager, wife, unofficial costumer.

Approximately one year ago, I thought that I might like to be a teacher—of math or some cool elective like psychology or philosophy or cooking. But then I a) didn’t go to college and b) realized that I would, invariably, have to deal with students that didn’t like the subject, which would probably make me an embittered old woman, as well as c) be in high school forever.

I wasn’t exactly a huge fan of high school, given all the “Sloan Kettering” jokes. Certain boys never grew up.

Status: Married

Ethnicity: English. Like, grandparents-off-the-boat English, on my dad’s side. My mom’s a European mutt, though almost completely German on her mother’s side.

Gender: Female. Obviously female, if not girly. Not manly, not a tomboy, not girly, just female.

Appearance: Pointedly average.

I mean, I think I’m pretty when I’m not wearing the Las Vegas t-shirt that once belonged to my grandfather and the paint-spattered jeans that were reserved for tech crew during high school, and I know Ian thinks I’m hot, but I’m no Demi Moore sex icon.

I’m the European mutt, remember? Light skinned, but not all translucent like some people can be. Brown hair that looks a little red in the sun, not really curly and not really straight, but not really your typical wavy, either. Hazel eyes. Not too much to write home about.

Political Views: Couldn’t give a damn. Honestly could not care less. I’ll vote for Plato or John Watson or Michael Phelps when November rolls around.

Position: Somewhere between pretty okay and gosh-awful good, depending on the day. Sitting in the back of the van lends towards the lower end of the spectrum, but we all have our moments. I remain confident. When we meet up with all the other music people that my music people like to hang out with, it will get better, because we’ll get a bus. Admittedly we’ll have to share this bus with other music people, but that’s okay. Kay is going to need her van back sooner or later, anyway.