words, words, words
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If I begin to detail myself here, will you understand?
P. I am me
Q. I don't always know exactly who that is
R. I am Quaker
S. I like words and playing with them
T. I like genmaicha tea
U. I like the word napkin more than most others
V. I spend time walking my neighborhood
W. I cook rice often
X. I sleep well most every night
Y. I eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables
Z. I munch, sleep, write, create, cook, bike, watch, walk, listen, hope, learn, drink, live, breathe, touch, know, question, taste, copy, read, stare, carry, talk, dance, finger, try.
raisin@gmail.com
albums:
Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
Erasure: I Say, I Say, I Say
Depeche Mode: Black Celebration
The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
David Bowie: Hunky Dory
George Michael: Listen without Prejudice
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
songs:
Wild is the Wind: Nina Simone
Come Undone: Duran Duran
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Rachmaninov
My Funny Valentine: Chet Baker
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: The Flaming Lips
This Must Be the Place: The Talking Heads
Hyperballad: Bjork
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Monday, June 21, 2004
I don't want to pretend high school was miserable. In fact, most of it was wonderful - i had a great time, especially my last two years. Because I was so much bigger than those around me, guys never messed with me. I gained enough confidence from the weight room and my own parents to feel comfortable about myself. As much as my parents pushed me, they also tried to make me feel good about myself, telling me how handsome I was and how proud of my grades they were. Perhaps it was to balance how disappointed they were in my brother. At the time, I blamed how they treated him on his bad behavior. He was the unruly one, who didn't believe in their ideals, who saw through them. I was quick to defend them either to my brother or to myself. At the time, I thought my dad was truthful, or at least hoped he was. i was willing to not examine things closely, to accept him and hope it was best, like my mother always has in her life. My parents were awfully permissive with me about staying out late and hanging with friends. They trusted me as well, and I never considered taking advantage of them. So long as we didn't talk about football, we had a good relationship. But of course, it was even better when my dad started working more often with my mother in her law office. I was often the only one home my junior and senior years, and i loved the solitude as well as the freedom to go whereever i pleased without asking for permission. I had similar freedom at school because my teachers liked me, and those who didn't know me assumed I was a teacher because I looked so much older. i would skip through the hallways and sing strange songs, and never had a second thought about it.
I separated myself. I never talked about football, and if any of my friends asked about it, i would shy away from the questions, shrug, simply avoid it. it worked powerfully, but of course, it cost me. I turned much of myself off in order to separate parts I enjoyed and parts I hated. When you block some parts of life out of your brain, you inadvertently block other parts out. Blocking out the emotion I had over football blocked out emotions altogether, and I never had feelings for a single person, not one crush, during high school or for years afterwards. But I was happy. Nobody could have looked at me and seen differently. I was a good athlete, at the top of my class, I had many friends and was generally well-liked. My life was incredibly easy so long as I could ignore football, and my mother told me i would eventually find girls interesting.
I had simply delayed much of my adolescence. Most teenagers start to question who they are and why their parents have control over them. i refused to; it wasn't necessary. i didn't understand why people would ever be sullen; I couldn't understand the rebellion in my brother or anyone else. I was strong, or at least the walls around me were. This was my family's version of strength, carrying on no matter what, putting a happy face to it. Strength was not introspection, it was staying the course. I recognized my family in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. My mother, a strong southern woman who could ignore everything around her that might get in the way of her purpose. She knew how things were supposed to be, and that was the way they were going to be, that's the way they were, if you listened to her often enough. That's the way it would be for me as well, as I grabbed hold of the old time religion.
1:47 PM
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