Good Morning. Or good night depending on what end your looking at it from. I am about to head off to bed. Just as soon as I finish writing this little blurb.
I wasn't sure what it was I thought I would try to say. I am always trying to put into words these giant amorphous thoughts I have. But the best I can do is try to capture them in the vernacular of my days.
Uh....did that make any sense to you? Cause it didn't make any sense to me.
Anyway...for today's blog I thought I would share a little bit about my childhood. Not for any particular reason, just the fact that the more I get away from it the more I treasure it.
It was a pretty typical upbringing. My folks were probably middle class, maybe upper middle class, but I thought we were rich. I mean, Dude, it was the eighties. Didn't everyone who was white think that they were rich?
I guess what I remember specifically, the moments I remember loving the most were late at night (who am I kidding - like seven o'clock) and me and Chad and Brett Aicher would play hide and go seek in between our houses and in the surrounding woods. We thought nothing of scaling trees, diving behind bushes, using my treehouse, hiding behind sheds, whatever. It was all part of it. There would be itmes where you felt like you would be lying on the ground for hours, when it was probably just 5 minutes. But you could smell the dank mustyness of the dirt, the freshness of the plants and trees and bushes. You would always end up getting your hands covered in sap or something else equally difficult to wash off. And that was always the finishing point of any night's adventure. The bath. It was a mandatory event. There was no negotiating. No pleading. No arguing. Your ass got plunked down in the tub and you had to get all the dirt and grime and bugs and flora and fauna off your body and down the drain. Every night would uncover a new bruise, scrape, gash, cut, whatever. All war wounds. All marks of the semi adventures you had right when the sun was setting and everything became just a little hazier. In winter time it was always forts and snowballs and snowmen. Then inside for some hot chocolate or the like. I remember waiting for my school bus in the freezing VT am with the snot freezing in my nostrils, tendrils of steam billowing out of my mouth.
My mom tells a story of when I was 5 years old and she was on the phone in the kitchen. I was outside in my own piece zip up snowsuit banging and banging and banging on the door. Apparently she had locked it. When she finally got off the phone and opened the door I yelled at her "Now you've done it! I pooped in my snowsuit."
Sigh.
That pretty much epitomizes my life. An ideal portrait of a normal kid who eventually ends up in the middle of some joke about poop. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way. I've been trying to draw a correlation recently between who I am now and that little kid, but I can't. Sometimes I worry about my popularity in high school. Not that I care about being popular back then. In fact, it's the inverse. I'm afraid that I was too popular and that I may have missed out on some scarring incidences that would drive me to succeed now. I can't think of anything that damaging, although I would hesitate to think that I was even really that popular. As a whole, I think my entire high school experience was pretty much ok. I was a generally happy kid that smiled a lot and the teachers were fine with that. Sure, they liked me fine, but they never deigned me worthy enough of any special focus or motivation. I think that they always thought I would be okay, and I guess that I am. But that doesn't mean that I liked that I was viewed that way.
I think that when I realized that my college sucked for me was when I made appointments with two of my favorite professors. I went and met with them each separately and asked them both the same question, Who the fuck am I and what the fuck should I do with my life? I look back on that and I laugh now. Of course, they had no idea. And neither did I. I just knew that i hated it there. I mean, I liked the meal plan, but I didn't feel any attachment to anything. just a listlessness. I spent my entire second semester freshman year asleep on a matress on my dorm room floor listening to Neil Young's 'Philadelphia' on repeat. I think my roommate thought I was insane. My first semester Sophomore year I became wholly nocturnal. I read all of the popular fiction at the library as well as most of the modern classics. I skipped 75% of my classes, still made passing grades and hated myself more for it. That was probably rock bottom. It was at that point that I had a big conversation with my middle brother. He's real stoic. But he did say one thing. He said "if nothing in your life seems to be looking up you have to depend on external things to motivate you to feel better. They might be fake at first but they can help eventually." I'm paraphrasing - he was actually a lot more eloquent for a man who constantly refers to me as "Meathead." So I got a little buddy. I became a Big Brother in the community and would go pick up this kid in Colchester, VT and we would go to the arcade, or to Burger King, or to this huge indoor playground. I think his favorite thing we ever did was plat Star Wars in my college apartment and I jumped on my bed and completely broke it. He was mortified. His face turned bright white. I think he thought I was gonna flip out. Instead I just started laughing and pretty soon he was too. Bo. Bo Bannister was his name. Bo was short for Robert. I remember the last time I talked to him it was on the phone and I explained to him that I probably wasn't going to hang out with him anymore. He said "Oh. Okay. Ben...I love you." I think he was 6 or 7. In hindsight that was probably the most significant thing I did in those 4 years. Don't tell my folks or they'll shit a brick over my tuition.
Since then things have only become better and better. I think that what happened was because I was stuck in my home town, because my folks were 15 minutes away, because I was going to college with people I went to high school with, and because I worked at a local restaurant (Sirloin Saloon. We had to answer the phone and say "Sirloin Saloon Serving you Steak Seafood and Smiles. Ben speaking. how may I help you?) I never really had a chacne to grow up. When I hit NYC and started going to grad school I fucking went crazy. I was shitfaced for an entire year of my life. I also lived in NJ (What up? Journal Square Represent!) and would drink until 4 am and then ride the path train home. I swear that I puked on every one of the stops until mine. I have a story about it. Ask me sometime.
I'm kind of unsure where I was going with this whole brief synopsis of the psat 27 years. By no means do I think that the story is over. But at the same time there are certainly parts that I would like to revisit. I would hate to think that as life propels me forward I am continually looking backwards, but I know the things that I treasure and I hope that there will be more in the future. How was that for a tacked on ending? Gimme a break. It's fucking 5 am and I just worked a 9 hour shift. A guy can cop out on his shit if he wants, right? Guys? Right guys? Anyone?
I wasn't sure what it was I thought I would try to say. I am always trying to put into words these giant amorphous thoughts I have. But the best I can do is try to capture them in the vernacular of my days.
Uh....did that make any sense to you? Cause it didn't make any sense to me.
Anyway...for today's blog I thought I would share a little bit about my childhood. Not for any particular reason, just the fact that the more I get away from it the more I treasure it.
It was a pretty typical upbringing. My folks were probably middle class, maybe upper middle class, but I thought we were rich. I mean, Dude, it was the eighties. Didn't everyone who was white think that they were rich?
I guess what I remember specifically, the moments I remember loving the most were late at night (who am I kidding - like seven o'clock) and me and Chad and Brett Aicher would play hide and go seek in between our houses and in the surrounding woods. We thought nothing of scaling trees, diving behind bushes, using my treehouse, hiding behind sheds, whatever. It was all part of it. There would be itmes where you felt like you would be lying on the ground for hours, when it was probably just 5 minutes. But you could smell the dank mustyness of the dirt, the freshness of the plants and trees and bushes. You would always end up getting your hands covered in sap or something else equally difficult to wash off. And that was always the finishing point of any night's adventure. The bath. It was a mandatory event. There was no negotiating. No pleading. No arguing. Your ass got plunked down in the tub and you had to get all the dirt and grime and bugs and flora and fauna off your body and down the drain. Every night would uncover a new bruise, scrape, gash, cut, whatever. All war wounds. All marks of the semi adventures you had right when the sun was setting and everything became just a little hazier. In winter time it was always forts and snowballs and snowmen. Then inside for some hot chocolate or the like. I remember waiting for my school bus in the freezing VT am with the snot freezing in my nostrils, tendrils of steam billowing out of my mouth.
My mom tells a story of when I was 5 years old and she was on the phone in the kitchen. I was outside in my own piece zip up snowsuit banging and banging and banging on the door. Apparently she had locked it. When she finally got off the phone and opened the door I yelled at her "Now you've done it! I pooped in my snowsuit."
Sigh.
That pretty much epitomizes my life. An ideal portrait of a normal kid who eventually ends up in the middle of some joke about poop. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way. I've been trying to draw a correlation recently between who I am now and that little kid, but I can't. Sometimes I worry about my popularity in high school. Not that I care about being popular back then. In fact, it's the inverse. I'm afraid that I was too popular and that I may have missed out on some scarring incidences that would drive me to succeed now. I can't think of anything that damaging, although I would hesitate to think that I was even really that popular. As a whole, I think my entire high school experience was pretty much ok. I was a generally happy kid that smiled a lot and the teachers were fine with that. Sure, they liked me fine, but they never deigned me worthy enough of any special focus or motivation. I think that they always thought I would be okay, and I guess that I am. But that doesn't mean that I liked that I was viewed that way.
I think that when I realized that my college sucked for me was when I made appointments with two of my favorite professors. I went and met with them each separately and asked them both the same question, Who the fuck am I and what the fuck should I do with my life? I look back on that and I laugh now. Of course, they had no idea. And neither did I. I just knew that i hated it there. I mean, I liked the meal plan, but I didn't feel any attachment to anything. just a listlessness. I spent my entire second semester freshman year asleep on a matress on my dorm room floor listening to Neil Young's 'Philadelphia' on repeat. I think my roommate thought I was insane. My first semester Sophomore year I became wholly nocturnal. I read all of the popular fiction at the library as well as most of the modern classics. I skipped 75% of my classes, still made passing grades and hated myself more for it. That was probably rock bottom. It was at that point that I had a big conversation with my middle brother. He's real stoic. But he did say one thing. He said "if nothing in your life seems to be looking up you have to depend on external things to motivate you to feel better. They might be fake at first but they can help eventually." I'm paraphrasing - he was actually a lot more eloquent for a man who constantly refers to me as "Meathead." So I got a little buddy. I became a Big Brother in the community and would go pick up this kid in Colchester, VT and we would go to the arcade, or to Burger King, or to this huge indoor playground. I think his favorite thing we ever did was plat Star Wars in my college apartment and I jumped on my bed and completely broke it. He was mortified. His face turned bright white. I think he thought I was gonna flip out. Instead I just started laughing and pretty soon he was too. Bo. Bo Bannister was his name. Bo was short for Robert. I remember the last time I talked to him it was on the phone and I explained to him that I probably wasn't going to hang out with him anymore. He said "Oh. Okay. Ben...I love you." I think he was 6 or 7. In hindsight that was probably the most significant thing I did in those 4 years. Don't tell my folks or they'll shit a brick over my tuition.
Since then things have only become better and better. I think that what happened was because I was stuck in my home town, because my folks were 15 minutes away, because I was going to college with people I went to high school with, and because I worked at a local restaurant (Sirloin Saloon. We had to answer the phone and say "Sirloin Saloon Serving you Steak Seafood and Smiles. Ben speaking. how may I help you?) I never really had a chacne to grow up. When I hit NYC and started going to grad school I fucking went crazy. I was shitfaced for an entire year of my life. I also lived in NJ (What up? Journal Square Represent!) and would drink until 4 am and then ride the path train home. I swear that I puked on every one of the stops until mine. I have a story about it. Ask me sometime.
I'm kind of unsure where I was going with this whole brief synopsis of the psat 27 years. By no means do I think that the story is over. But at the same time there are certainly parts that I would like to revisit. I would hate to think that as life propels me forward I am continually looking backwards, but I know the things that I treasure and I hope that there will be more in the future. How was that for a tacked on ending? Gimme a break. It's fucking 5 am and I just worked a 9 hour shift. A guy can cop out on his shit if he wants, right? Guys? Right guys? Anyone?
posted by Ben at 5:20 AM
1 Comments:
"Now you've done it! I pooped in my snowsuit" acutally, truly, made me laugh out loud. Not "LOL", but acutual laugh. You're a good writer. Why do you call it the "Tourist Trap?"
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