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just ignore the following
As Much As I Hate to Admit it...
I was born in a shit town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; Wonderland of the north. Wonderland my ass, more like a wonder hell. My whole life I was trapped by closed minded bigots, miles of nothing but trees, and a severe lack of any form of culture. The best one could hope for in this desolate chunk of forest was something they picked up off of fuse or some other random music television network. We were pathetic. I’ll admit, Not sure that anyone else would, but I sure as hell would. I accepted my lowly state a long time ago. In fact, I’ll tell you about the exact moment when I realized that I was okay with my roots, however pine scented they may be.
August, 2004
It was my final year of high school. I couldn’t tell you in any accuracy how many stories have begun with that very line, but I’m sure it’s a lot. What I can tell you is that, in all honesty, I had zero expectations. My goal for those dreary, boredom ridden nine months was merely to survive it without taking my own life in some terribly tragic way.
And so I begun the first day in a depressed stupor. Wait, lets rewind to the night before the first day. The night before my first day of the last year of my high school career, my friend Helen called me up at somewhere around 5:30 and asked if I wanted to go get baked with her at Quentin park. Of course I felt obligated to say yes, I’m never one to pass up good weed.
She picked me up soon after in her 1988 Chrysler Dynasty, which we lovingly referred to as Dyna. I’m fairly sure we wrote a song about Dyna once, but that, my friend, is a different story for a different time. She whipped out her utensil and asked me politely to pack it, and so I did and. As you can guess we proceeded to smoke the bajesus out of it and then parked in the dirt lot of Quentin park and sat on the big dome jungle gym... thing. We sat and stared to the east, watching as summer passed before our very eyes.
“Allen?” Helen inquired timidly.
There was a long pause, “you gonna follow that up hun?” I responded, not realizing she was waiting for me to respond.
“Do you realize, this is it. We just spent the majority of our lives in one place and now we’re suddenly going to just leave.” Another pause, “that’s fucked up.”
“I don’t know,” I started, not entirely sure what I was actually going to say, “I think ‘suddenly’ is a bad word for it. If you think about it, we’ve been leaving this place for a while now.”
“I suppose we have.”
On that note we got back in my car and she went to drop me off at my house. I walked in the door reluctantly, hoping my mother had already gone to bad. I walked in, building myself up to make excuses and such. Thankfully she wasn’t around, so I went up stairs and got ready for bed. I had just moved from my old bedroom into the smaller one, I like cozy spaces. I had finally lain down to sleep when I heard crying. My heart sank in my chest. Had she caught me? Did she know? Jesus Christ I’m fucking dead! Oh she’s crying oh no oh no oh no! Kaaaaahn! I contemplated opening the window and throwing myself out it, but I decided to face the music.
I opened the door of my bedroom reluctantly, and stepped into the hallway. Creeping like the goddamn hamburglar, I pressed my ear against my old rooms door to listen to see what was going on. Finally, after about twenty minutes of getting myself ready I opened the door to find her sitting on my old bed, face in hands weeping like little girl. I love my mom, more than I can ever bear to mention, and I hate it when she cries, cause first she cries and then I cry, and then we cry together, and then its just a big crying mess. It’s anything but pretty.
She looked up from her hands and saw me and just began to wail. I walked over to her and sat beside her on the bed looking into my empty closet. It was the first time I saw my room since I moved out of it and, I guess I didn’t realize how affecting that would be to me. “What’s wrong”, I asked as innocently as possible, “did I do something wrong?”
She stopped crying instantaneously and looked at me, “oh my god, no hunny, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just... It’s just that you’ve lived in this room since you were a baby, and...” she paused to wipe the flooding of tears, “it’s the first time my baby has been right next door.”
It was true, too. I had lived in that room since I came home from the hospital. I had gone through everything that I had ever known in that room, sharing it with my brother, the first time someone I knew died, my first kiss, everything. That room held more memories that I can even really remember, and now I wouldn’t sleep there anymore.
For at least another hour we sat on my bed, staring at my closet, crying, reminiscing. It was strange, I never even thought of how big of a move that was, I just thought of it as a change. I didn’t realize just how much a change it was. And just how much it foreshadowed the other changes that would quickly be sweeping through my life.
I went to bed that night, and I dreamed about dogs chasing me. You tell me what that means.
September 2004: The 411 on Kingston High School.
September brought actual school. My class schedule went as follows:
Advanced Placement Government and Politics
Journalism
Independent study at the animal shelter
Advanced Placement Literature
French 3
Digital Video Editing
Concert Chorale
My first class of the day often became the source of my great annoyance with the world. My teacher, Mrs. Ciel, was the wife of a judge, a fact that she felt made her eligible to teach government and politics. Fact was, she usually had no idea what she was talking about. Well that’s not totally true, but for the sake of my own amusement we’ll say that it is. Throughout the year my classmates and I would find ourselves catching worried glances as Mrs. Ciel scrambled to think of the answer to a question. If she couldn’t’ even think of something totally untrue to say, she’d answer our inquiries with a “I’m not sure, I’ll have to look that up” or a “let me ask my husband and I’ll get back to you.”
She had the pretentious air of a wannabe socialite. Constantly noting the fact that her daughter was on the speech writing staff for the governor of Wisconsin. Often she would get this airy look in her eye and begin to tell some disgustingly superficial story about her husbands’ election, or how they once saw a senator in a restaurant with some “sleazy bimbo that most certainly was not his wife”. The part that made everything come together for a good joke was the fact that she had one of the largest overbites known to man. But to put aside all physical and personal flaws, she really was an excellent teacher. In years to come I would I often find myself remembering discussions we had in her class.
This government class could not have been composed of a more socially diverse group. We had Nick Bradivich, my best friend in the world who just so coincidentally happens to be gayer that Liberacci’s toy poodle. Not in the feminine, I’m-not-really-sure-if-I’m-a-boy-or-a-girl kind of way, but in the I’m-obsessed-with-Dick kind of way. To counter that, we have two people. Make that three. The first of the three is Alex Bevnie, a right wing religious fanatic with a teletubby tummy. Secondly theres Brant Blomquist, once again a right wing religious fanatic. The only difference to between him and Alex, was that there’s a good chance he was gay. Thirdly, we have Stephen Wainer. He was just extremely conservative, but we have reason to believe that he killed a litter of kittens. Yes, Kittens. I mean seriously, who kills kittens? Apparently someone with intense behavioral disabilities ranging from antisocial to schizoid mixed with some intense homoerotic insecurities.
On the opposite side of that spectrum we had yours truly, moi, my sister (not really but might as well have been), Amelia Grinn, who roamed the middle of the road and tended to lean toward the liberal lane along with her insanely long term boyfriend Mick Allende. We tended to be the voices of reason. Vicky Collinsback was so liberal she probably gave donations to any socialist party she could find. She was the crazy animal rights activist type who enjoyed stopping in the middle of the road to give road kill proper burials. One time she stopped the car and drove 20 minutes with a dying cat in her arms. Peeing, vomiting, bleeding all over Vicky, she stood strong until she could get it to the vet. It died, needless to say, but at least she eased its suffering.
Another teacher worth noting is Mrs. Sullen. Despite her name, she was a constant confidante and friend throughout high school, she bared an uncanny resemblance to miss piggy, and I only mean that with love. I found her to be one of the easiest teachers to talk to. She had the perfect balance of teenage comfort and grown up respect, and all the time she was able to take everything we said with a grain of salt.
To follow Mrs. Sullen, we have the infamous Mrs. Jane A. W. Steel. Yes, her initials spell out JAWS. She is the teacher that everyone will remember for years to come. Her crazy antics, and intense mood swings took on a roller coaster ride between absolute love and adoration, to entire loathing and intense fear. You hear about teachers like this :::::
Outline for Story of My Life
August:
Helen and Quentin Park
Mother and crying fest
September:
Homecoming: big blowout
Introduction of senior teachers
Beginning of conflict between brother and parents
Other brother moving out
The foster child
October:
Getting to know the foster child
First play of my senior year “sleepy Hollow”
The Kurt Incident
November
Elections
December
College and Brother Visit
Christmas
January
Second play “Nobody Sleeps”
February
A lonely Valentines Day
The Geekiest Concert to Exist
March
Final Play “treasure Island”
April
The Least geeky Concert to Exist
May
18th birthday
Graduation
June
Life: post High School
July
The 4th of july
August
As Much As I Hate to Admit it...
I was born in a shit town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; Wonderland of the north. Wonderland my ass, more like a wonder hell. My whole life I was trapped by closed minded bigots, miles of nothing but trees, and a severe lack of any form of culture. The best one could hope for in this desolate chunk of forest was something they picked up off of fuse or some other random music television network. We were pathetic. I’ll admit, Not sure that anyone else would, but I sure as hell would. I accepted my lowly state a long time ago. In fact, I’ll tell you about the exact moment when I realized that I was okay with my roots, however pine scented they may be.
August, 2004
It was my final year of high school. I couldn’t tell you in any accuracy how many stories have begun with that very line, but I’m sure it’s a lot. What I can tell you is that, in all honesty, I had zero expectations. My goal for those dreary, boredom ridden nine months was merely to survive it without taking my own life in some terribly tragic way.
And so I begun the first day in a depressed stupor. Wait, lets rewind to the night before the first day. The night before my first day of the last year of my high school career, my friend Helen called me up at somewhere around 5:30 and asked if I wanted to go get baked with her at Quentin park. Of course I felt obligated to say yes, I’m never one to pass up good weed.
She picked me up soon after in her 1988 Chrysler Dynasty, which we lovingly referred to as Dyna. I’m fairly sure we wrote a song about Dyna once, but that, my friend, is a different story for a different time. She whipped out her utensil and asked me politely to pack it, and so I did and. As you can guess we proceeded to smoke the bajesus out of it and then parked in the dirt lot of Quentin park and sat on the big dome jungle gym... thing. We sat and stared to the east, watching as summer passed before our very eyes.
“Allen?” Helen inquired timidly.
There was a long pause, “you gonna follow that up hun?” I responded, not realizing she was waiting for me to respond.
“Do you realize, this is it. We just spent the majority of our lives in one place and now we’re suddenly going to just leave.” Another pause, “that’s fucked up.”
“I don’t know,” I started, not entirely sure what I was actually going to say, “I think ‘suddenly’ is a bad word for it. If you think about it, we’ve been leaving this place for a while now.”
“I suppose we have.”
On that note we got back in my car and she went to drop me off at my house. I walked in the door reluctantly, hoping my mother had already gone to bad. I walked in, building myself up to make excuses and such. Thankfully she wasn’t around, so I went up stairs and got ready for bed. I had just moved from my old bedroom into the smaller one, I like cozy spaces. I had finally lain down to sleep when I heard crying. My heart sank in my chest. Had she caught me? Did she know? Jesus Christ I’m fucking dead! Oh she’s crying oh no oh no oh no! Kaaaaahn! I contemplated opening the window and throwing myself out it, but I decided to face the music.
I opened the door of my bedroom reluctantly, and stepped into the hallway. Creeping like the goddamn hamburglar, I pressed my ear against my old rooms door to listen to see what was going on. Finally, after about twenty minutes of getting myself ready I opened the door to find her sitting on my old bed, face in hands weeping like little girl. I love my mom, more than I can ever bear to mention, and I hate it when she cries, cause first she cries and then I cry, and then we cry together, and then its just a big crying mess. It’s anything but pretty.
She looked up from her hands and saw me and just began to wail. I walked over to her and sat beside her on the bed looking into my empty closet. It was the first time I saw my room since I moved out of it and, I guess I didn’t realize how affecting that would be to me. “What’s wrong”, I asked as innocently as possible, “did I do something wrong?”
She stopped crying instantaneously and looked at me, “oh my god, no hunny, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just... It’s just that you’ve lived in this room since you were a baby, and...” she paused to wipe the flooding of tears, “it’s the first time my baby has been right next door.”
It was true, too. I had lived in that room since I came home from the hospital. I had gone through everything that I had ever known in that room, sharing it with my brother, the first time someone I knew died, my first kiss, everything. That room held more memories that I can even really remember, and now I wouldn’t sleep there anymore.
For at least another hour we sat on my bed, staring at my closet, crying, reminiscing. It was strange, I never even thought of how big of a move that was, I just thought of it as a change. I didn’t realize just how much a change it was. And just how much it foreshadowed the other changes that would quickly be sweeping through my life.
I went to bed that night, and I dreamed about dogs chasing me. You tell me what that means.
September 2004: The 411 on Kingston High School.
September brought actual school. My class schedule went as follows:
Advanced Placement Government and Politics
Journalism
Independent study at the animal shelter
Advanced Placement Literature
French 3
Digital Video Editing
Concert Chorale
My first class of the day often became the source of my great annoyance with the world. My teacher, Mrs. Ciel, was the wife of a judge, a fact that she felt made her eligible to teach government and politics. Fact was, she usually had no idea what she was talking about. Well that’s not totally true, but for the sake of my own amusement we’ll say that it is. Throughout the year my classmates and I would find ourselves catching worried glances as Mrs. Ciel scrambled to think of the answer to a question. If she couldn’t’ even think of something totally untrue to say, she’d answer our inquiries with a “I’m not sure, I’ll have to look that up” or a “let me ask my husband and I’ll get back to you.”
She had the pretentious air of a wannabe socialite. Constantly noting the fact that her daughter was on the speech writing staff for the governor of Wisconsin. Often she would get this airy look in her eye and begin to tell some disgustingly superficial story about her husbands’ election, or how they once saw a senator in a restaurant with some “sleazy bimbo that most certainly was not his wife”. The part that made everything come together for a good joke was the fact that she had one of the largest overbites known to man. But to put aside all physical and personal flaws, she really was an excellent teacher. In years to come I would I often find myself remembering discussions we had in her class.
This government class could not have been composed of a more socially diverse group. We had Nick Bradivich, my best friend in the world who just so coincidentally happens to be gayer that Liberacci’s toy poodle. Not in the feminine, I’m-not-really-sure-if-I’m-a-boy-or-a-girl kind of way, but in the I’m-obsessed-with-Dick kind of way. To counter that, we have two people. Make that three. The first of the three is Alex Bevnie, a right wing religious fanatic with a teletubby tummy. Secondly theres Brant Blomquist, once again a right wing religious fanatic. The only difference to between him and Alex, was that there’s a good chance he was gay. Thirdly, we have Stephen Wainer. He was just extremely conservative, but we have reason to believe that he killed a litter of kittens. Yes, Kittens. I mean seriously, who kills kittens? Apparently someone with intense behavioral disabilities ranging from antisocial to schizoid mixed with some intense homoerotic insecurities.
On the opposite side of that spectrum we had yours truly, moi, my sister (not really but might as well have been), Amelia Grinn, who roamed the middle of the road and tended to lean toward the liberal lane along with her insanely long term boyfriend Mick Allende. We tended to be the voices of reason. Vicky Collinsback was so liberal she probably gave donations to any socialist party she could find. She was the crazy animal rights activist type who enjoyed stopping in the middle of the road to give road kill proper burials. One time she stopped the car and drove 20 minutes with a dying cat in her arms. Peeing, vomiting, bleeding all over Vicky, she stood strong until she could get it to the vet. It died, needless to say, but at least she eased its suffering.
Another teacher worth noting is Mrs. Sullen. Despite her name, she was a constant confidante and friend throughout high school, she bared an uncanny resemblance to miss piggy, and I only mean that with love. I found her to be one of the easiest teachers to talk to. She had the perfect balance of teenage comfort and grown up respect, and all the time she was able to take everything we said with a grain of salt.
To follow Mrs. Sullen, we have the infamous Mrs. Jane A. W. Steel. Yes, her initials spell out JAWS. She is the teacher that everyone will remember for years to come. Her crazy antics, and intense mood swings took on a roller coaster ride between absolute love and adoration, to entire loathing and intense fear. You hear about teachers like this :::::
Outline for Story of My Life
August:
Helen and Quentin Park
Mother and crying fest
September:
Homecoming: big blowout
Introduction of senior teachers
Beginning of conflict between brother and parents
Other brother moving out
The foster child
October:
Getting to know the foster child
First play of my senior year “sleepy Hollow”
The Kurt Incident
November
Elections
December
College and Brother Visit
Christmas
January
Second play “Nobody Sleeps”
February
A lonely Valentines Day
The Geekiest Concert to Exist
March
Final Play “treasure Island”
April
The Least geeky Concert to Exist
May
18th birthday
Graduation
June
Life: post High School
July
The 4th of july
August