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Uncategorized
Abuse? Naw.
It is always awkward for me when people hear about my past and are fairly certain I was abused. I mean, I know what abuse is, right? It’s getting beat with a belt buckle or a curling iron or kicked or told you’re a worthless piece of shit every day of your life. Abuse is not… my childhood and teenage years. It’s even more remarkable when people tell me I’m surprisingly stable and well-adjusted given my past. I mean, doesn’t everyone’s parents’ have quirks that made childhood weird?
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To an amazing woman: Jenny Zartman
I’ve been musing for several days what to write about the death of Jenny Zartman. There are the details: that she died in a car accident heading down to Wilmington to be with her cousin early August 5, 2006. There’s the emotional impact: her parents’ immense grief; Michael’s heartrending sadness and infinite helpfulness and patience; my mother’s sad calls to my father, half a country away; Becca’s broken voice over the phone; my own unending shock and sadness and my eleven-hour drive to Charlotte to be with those I love and who love Jenny in their time of grief. I have not stopped thinking of her and Michael during the…
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Am I still the same?
As an underclassman in high school, whenever people were insulting or cruel to me, I would spend a decent amount of energy devising a perfect cutting revenge. Something short and usually based upon very personal, embarrassing/shameful details they’d told me. I’d wait until they’d forgotten about their transgression (not long, for 15-year olds), then remind them casually and right in public of their dog-fucking habits or of the collection of child rape porn they were hiding on their parents’ computer. I developed a nice style, I think. Pleasantly inquisitive, smiling all the while. I don’t do that so much any more. I never figured out why people still confided in…
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Protected: Forever’s going nowhere tonight…
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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Uncategorized
Surprise!
The newspaper finished nice and early-ish last night (just after midnight), and the Weir(d) One (henceforth abbreviated to “WO”) and I stayed in the office late to work. Well, you can’t get two talkative people like me and WO together and expect us to silently and diligently work. It ain’t going to happen. We talked about a variety of topics, including my research with Dr. M, during which I revealed my growing desire to stop doing research because it didn’t feel worthwhile anymore. Not that I felt the work itself was any less important, but moreso that I felt that I was doing it for the sake of not letting…