Parlance.
In some places, this would be where they'd tell me to talk about my feelings. (Not here. You've all been subjected to my feelings for years. Let's move on, shall we?)
It's like group therapy. I was in that, sort of, as a teenager.
I qualify that statement by saying that I do not think that the guidance counselor who hosted our little "sessions" was technically qualified to lead us in secular prayer, which is what psychology really is. There isn't a God, so sorry, but here's a college graduate who managed to discredit someone else's hours of research while on a diet-pill bender. Enjoy.
We were in the group because they couldn't fit us ALL into a locker, couldn't wedgie us ALL simultaneously. We had the kid with the huge head, the kid who had to bathe in Clearasil, the kid who was probably gay (or possibly Canadian; in the 80s, none of us could discern the difference...both stereotypes were so polite), and me.
I was a square peg in a square hole, a depressed kid. Raise your hand if you were ever depressed as a teenager. Yep. I was something special, all right.
What made me part of this sideshow was that I was the size of the tormentors. Bigger, actually. The first few times we met, I was worried about the others. They seemed a little intimidated.
It was nice to get out of class, it being high school and all, but frankly, I think they made a mistake. There were, I postulated while the others spoke, much simpler solutions to our problems. Common courtesy, and maybe the niceties of living in the alleged First World, may have complicated matters, but in my hormone-addled teenage brain, I had it all figured out. Talking? Talking only seemed to rub our faces in what we each knew to be true: these were the good old days, but they'd have to be somebody else's. Nostalgia for abuse is the lot of masochists, and the reason none of us were particularly chipper was that we'd failed at masochism about as severely as most of us would have failed a graded gym class. (Our gym teachers were, despite being state-champion football coaches, among the nicest men ever to scream obscenities at adolescent boys. Yes, I include myself in this list, failure of a father that I am.)
The kid with the huge melon? All he had to do was return the brutalization suffered at the hands of his father. Seventeen or eighteen punches in, the man would obviously return to reason. People cannot thrive in a violent society; even a seventy-year-old steelworker with glue and vodka issues knows that. He simply needed reminding.
The kid with the terrible skin? Pancake makeup or Dr Phibes-style bandages. If it could work for Vincent Price and Lon Chaney (both), it could maybe get him out of his shell. And then, on the eighth or ninth date, he could do the Big Reveal, and watch his date scream in horror.
The gay Canadian? All he had to do was move to New York. They love the gays AND the Canadians. I'd met both (sometimes, they were the same person!) during my underage-drinking forays into the East Village. Trivia fact: if you're a tall teenaged guy, gay guys will buy you drinks just for standing at the bar and discussing the obvious lack of a constant narrative between Duran Duran records. IT'S THAT SIMPLE. No touching, no guilt over being a flamboyantly hetero dude!
And me, you ask? (And these being the intarwebs, it IS all about me. You may have thought it was about you, and I find your naivete charming, but it is not.)
After many months of these mass simperings, a tiny, range-hood-strength bulb started humming over my allegedly-Jheri-Curled head (not true, FYI; I have naturally curly hair, since I am Black Irish).
I figured I'd do better by addressing my problems the old-fashioned way. I would raise an army, just as the guidance department had, albeit unwittingly.
So that's what I did, and continue to do. Maybe I'll share more, another time. I see our hour is up.
It's like group therapy. I was in that, sort of, as a teenager.
I qualify that statement by saying that I do not think that the guidance counselor who hosted our little "sessions" was technically qualified to lead us in secular prayer, which is what psychology really is. There isn't a God, so sorry, but here's a college graduate who managed to discredit someone else's hours of research while on a diet-pill bender. Enjoy.
We were in the group because they couldn't fit us ALL into a locker, couldn't wedgie us ALL simultaneously. We had the kid with the huge head, the kid who had to bathe in Clearasil, the kid who was probably gay (or possibly Canadian; in the 80s, none of us could discern the difference...both stereotypes were so polite), and me.
I was a square peg in a square hole, a depressed kid. Raise your hand if you were ever depressed as a teenager. Yep. I was something special, all right.
What made me part of this sideshow was that I was the size of the tormentors. Bigger, actually. The first few times we met, I was worried about the others. They seemed a little intimidated.
It was nice to get out of class, it being high school and all, but frankly, I think they made a mistake. There were, I postulated while the others spoke, much simpler solutions to our problems. Common courtesy, and maybe the niceties of living in the alleged First World, may have complicated matters, but in my hormone-addled teenage brain, I had it all figured out. Talking? Talking only seemed to rub our faces in what we each knew to be true: these were the good old days, but they'd have to be somebody else's. Nostalgia for abuse is the lot of masochists, and the reason none of us were particularly chipper was that we'd failed at masochism about as severely as most of us would have failed a graded gym class. (Our gym teachers were, despite being state-champion football coaches, among the nicest men ever to scream obscenities at adolescent boys. Yes, I include myself in this list, failure of a father that I am.)
The kid with the huge melon? All he had to do was return the brutalization suffered at the hands of his father. Seventeen or eighteen punches in, the man would obviously return to reason. People cannot thrive in a violent society; even a seventy-year-old steelworker with glue and vodka issues knows that. He simply needed reminding.
The kid with the terrible skin? Pancake makeup or Dr Phibes-style bandages. If it could work for Vincent Price and Lon Chaney (both), it could maybe get him out of his shell. And then, on the eighth or ninth date, he could do the Big Reveal, and watch his date scream in horror.
The gay Canadian? All he had to do was move to New York. They love the gays AND the Canadians. I'd met both (sometimes, they were the same person!) during my underage-drinking forays into the East Village. Trivia fact: if you're a tall teenaged guy, gay guys will buy you drinks just for standing at the bar and discussing the obvious lack of a constant narrative between Duran Duran records. IT'S THAT SIMPLE. No touching, no guilt over being a flamboyantly hetero dude!
And me, you ask? (And these being the intarwebs, it IS all about me. You may have thought it was about you, and I find your naivete charming, but it is not.)
After many months of these mass simperings, a tiny, range-hood-strength bulb started humming over my allegedly-Jheri-Curled head (not true, FYI; I have naturally curly hair, since I am Black Irish).
I figured I'd do better by addressing my problems the old-fashioned way. I would raise an army, just as the guidance department had, albeit unwittingly.
So that's what I did, and continue to do. Maybe I'll share more, another time. I see our hour is up.