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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Wednesday, June 09, 2004
So I played football. practice was at 6pm, well after school, and i dreaded it all day long. I remember strange parts of it, the shape of the practice field, the smell of fall and freshly-cut grass (both of which I still hate today), putting on a jock strap for the first time underneath the white football pants and my brother mercifully telling me that I needed to wear underwear underneath the jock strap so the other players wouldn't make fun of my naked butt. I remember how the fat head coach (they always seem to be heavy) yelled my last name, yelled it - i had never been yelled at before, and now my name became the invisible hook that brought me into the spotlight away from my safe invisibility, trying to hide behind the other players. I was always too tall to hide anyway, but i guess i didn't realize it. I would look forward to hearing my dad drive up by the field in his Volkswagen Thing- you could always hear that car coming. if he was there, practice was sure to be over soon, except for those times he came to watch. To watch me in my humiliation, the one that forced me to be there, to watch me in my utter confusion, not knowing how to play, not knowing how to hit, trying to hide how much i hated it because i was embarrassed, utterly embarrassed at every part of me. I think shame may be the most difficult part of life for kids to deal with, the fear they don't measure up to the other kids, to their parents, to themselves. that first season of football was shame, laughing at me every day.
I didn't have any friends going into seventh grade. I was beginning a new school and had lost all my other friends from my last school, had lost my best friend because she had become too good for me, one year older, a teenager when I wasn't. Because of her, I had sworn off friends in general, had told myself I would never need another friend again. Some people told me football would help me make friends, but it only increased my alienation, being around boys i saw as cruel and horrible, knowing they saw me humiliated every day, not wanting to admit that I was playing because my dad made me, that i secretly hated it. i didn't enjoy seventh grade.
I suppose other boys might have disobeyed their dads, might have refused to play. I was a trusting, obedient boy, always hopeful that my dad was better than he was, that what we said was truth, that he only wanted the best for me. I played because he told me to, and never thought a second about disobeying him. To obey is better than sacrifice, I Samuel 15:22, as my Mother constantly reminded me. She meant to obey is better than to have to come back, apologize, and make amends (to sacrifice an animal to God), but of course, obedience is sacrifice, giving up your own desires for the love of someone else. So I played for him but would never admit it. But I only played the first year because he told me to, and although it was a dirty trick how he got me to play, i didn't realize until later the length he would go to convince me to play in high school.
12:35 AM
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