Blooming in the middle of a big agricultural area

Going on my mission - even early on - really brought out my competence and caring for others.

While doing my shopping for Christmas 1992, I also bought birthday presents for everyone for 1993, wrapped them, and left them where they would be ready. My family knew that.

What they did not know was that I had also bought Christmas presents for 1993 and hid them with the Christmas decorations, and birthday presents for 1994, which I had hidden in strategic places in my room. I had notes. My family was surprised and impressed.

(Unfortunately, my mother stumbled across the '94 birthday present for my sister-in-law and was confused and curious so she opened it, for which my SIL never forgave her.)

At the missionary training center, my odd status meant that I knew the entire Lao and Cantonese classes, and quickly cared for both.

There was one elder who wasn't getting a lot of mail; I not only sent him some letters, but I might have written to his family encouraging them to write. That may sound interfering, but he appreciated it.

I would get little craft ideas for inspirational things, and then make them for everyone in both classes. It wasn't that different from planning treats for basketball players.

Later, since we were having a Christmas day zone service project, I spearheaded getting simple Christmas stockings for every missionary in the zone. I had church kids help.

I do remember occasionally slapping down foolish remarks pretty forcefully. Still, I was good at liking people and wanting to be there for them. So whether it was teaching a confused elder how to iron (why did no one teach him that before?) or giving a really moving Sunday school lesson on Joseph Smith, there was a lot that was gratifying and came easily.

I remember feeling like I would be able to use all of myself -- talents, interests, everything -- on my mission. There was a place for everything.

It did take me a while to figure out how to study Lao effectively; it was so different from other languages I had studied. I think a lot of that was the different alphabet. Eventually, I started writing things out and writing out translations, and that worked.

When necessary, I could speak above my level. It happened translating, and talking to investigators. I spent a lot of time in flow. 

So many times it was just so easy to know exactly what someone needed or what I needed to do. That included sometimes knowing that I needed to exercise faith, so literally knowing one time that I needed to spend my last few dollars on flowers for one woman who was having a hard time, and that money would come, and it did. Twice. I guess both checks would have gotten there anyway, but it meant more because of the faith.

I remember knowing exactly what I needed to do so I could translate. Once we were missing the directions to get to an appointment, and I just navigated by the Spirit, and we got there.

Many times I was also asked to do things I didn't think I could do, and then I did. After just a month in the field I was asked to rehearse the Relief Society sisters with a song for the stake talent show. I was not familiar with the song, and I had never led music practice, but somehow it worked out. 

I was better at music than I should have been there. With my low voice, when three of us were supposed to do a musical number I should not have been the one the other two were taking their pitch from, but they didn't feel comfortable and I just did it. I once wrote a song and sang it as a solo, a capella, for a district meeting, and it was fine. 

It turned out that I was exceedingly brave, and confident, sometimes. Maybe it was more my pragmatism than anything else.

We had some elders who took an initial request to occasionally borrow our car and suddenly wanted it all the time. When we needed to confront them, I was the one who was newest. I didn't think I should be the spokesperson. The other sisters agreed, and then clammed up. So I handled it.

When in the process of doing a lot of service Christmas week, we had missed a few study hours -- having been perfect for studying every other week -- our district leader tried to shame us. I handled that too. He knew exactly what we thought of that.

That was one thing I thought worked well, though others might disagree: I was in no way impaired by concern over what elders would think. They were mostly nice and good people -- I didn't have problems with them -- but for all of the insecurity and issues I'd had with the opposite sex in school, it was not a problem in the mission field. My problems were with sisters.

Hold that thought. 

Otherwise, there were a few people I had a harder time loving and I felt some guilt about that. 

There were occasional problems with my not being able to drive.

The San Joaquin Valley was a great big bowl collecting dust and pollen that triggered allergies. I never felt the regular allergy symptoms, but apparently the allergens hung around in my lungs until every few months they got infected. The first time my lungs got hyper-inflated so that every breath I took was extremely painful, and I didn't know why. It was scary.

But yeah, mainly my problems were with the sisters, and we will deal with that tomorrow. Before that, I need to share something I did that hurt someone, without intending to. It can be so easy.

Sister N was getting transferred up to be my companion. I was thrilled to be getting her because I liked her, and Elder F assumed that meant she was a good missionary. I said that was not the point, I just liked her. 

Later that night, after we were both in bed, she called out to me. I could hear she was crying, asking if I thought she was not a good missionary. 

That hadn't been it at all! There are lots of good missionaries, but there are some you enjoy more than others. It is better with someone you can enjoy. Anyone who had been paired with Sister L should have known that! 

We got it straightened out, but I have to assume that the things that injured me were not intended to do so. 

Except for Sister M, but only temporarily. And Sister W. She meant it.

Precursors at the Training Center

We have now reached the time where I talk about formative experiences while I was on my mission.

I feel like I will need to start every post with a disclaimer, but perhaps I can only say it once: I absolutely knew then that I should go on a mission, and I still know that it was right to go. That there were painful things isn't even surprising. 

To be fair, I have pangs as I disclose some things about my family too. People are complex and feelings are real, and we will spend time on that.

Obviously, the way some things hit me had a lot to do with whom I already was.

I entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on February 3rd, 1993, left around April 3rd for the California Fresno Mission, Laotian-speaking, and then returned home on August 3rd, 1994. Obviously it's been a while, and and a lot has changed.

The Fresno mission had missionaries who spoke English, Spanish, Cambodian, and Hmong, as well as Lao. For the Asian languages, none of the relevant countries had missionaries, so any missionaries speaking those languages would be working with refugee populations. The day I went home, one of the Cambodian elders from my mission flew to LAX then PDX with me, where he met three other missionaries and they were going to Cambodia to open it up there. (There had been some service missionaries already.)

The point of that (besides that maybe you will find it interesting) is that there were never that many missionaries speaking any of those languages, and in fact only Fresno had Lao sisters. It would have been only four at a time, but there was an older sister who spoke Chinese and Thai, which is close to Lao, and they had her work with us. You don't change companions much and most importantly, only one Lao sister would go through the Missionary Training Center at a time. This meant that I was the only girl in my class, and that my companions were in the next room learning Cantonese to serve in Hong Kong.

I could easily have had issues fitting in anyway. I was politically liberal from a part-member family, and they were sometimes shocked by jokes I would make. Also, one was kind of passive aggressive when she had problems with me. I started being able to figure out what was bugging her when it was bugging her, but it was kind of frustrating.

More to the point, they just clicked instantly with each other. One was the other's maid of honor later. 

One of their agreements was that on Prep Day we should do the earliest possible temple session, and then we had the rest of the day for laundry and letters. I am just going to tell you that most of the rest of the day for them was napping, which you could argue was not efficient, but that was a minor nuisance.

There was a bad experience that wasn't really their fault. They both tried out for the choir, and made it. The choir director at the time was weird about people not being able to observe practice. Normally if your companion is in but you aren't, there is someone else with that issue and you can pair up with them. I guess I thought I would find someone or that just quietly staying in the room wouldn't be a big deal. I didn't and it was, and I found myself out in the hall, without a companion.

That was a big deal; companions are how we stay out of trouble. So there I was, newly a missionary, and breaking rules because I hadn't prepared, or because I was in a stupid threesome, or maybe just me always somehow being wrong, still and again.

I sat down on the floor and started crying.

Some staff (one was Mary Ellen Edmunds who ran the Relief Society meetings, and whom I adore) discovered me. Without berating me for being unaccompanied, everyone tried really hard to be helpful, but I couldn't talk. I tried, and no words came out. They eventually let me be, which was the kindest thing overall.

That was the first time that happened to me. It doesn't happen often. With some of the issues I have had asking for help, occasional mutism makes sense. Usually I can say other things, even if I can't say what I need. That was more the case for the next time.

My companions and I mostly got along, but often the things that they were talking about were about Cantonese or Hong Kong or things from class, and I was just peripheral. One day I heard them say to each other how important it was to really focus on only speaking Cantonese as much as possible. I remember suddenly feeling cold.

I know to them it felt like obedience and necessity, so I didn't protest. They really did increase their Cantonese speaking. Incidentally, I still know about 20 words in Cantonese after all this time. Impressive perhaps, but it didn't get me far. I started feeling more and more left out, and more and more deeply sad.

You know, we often don't credit men for being very sensitive, and there are reasons for that, but those seven 19 year old guys in my class noticed that I was hurting, and they insisted on me telling them. They related to that need to practice language, but they also didn't want to see me so isolated.

The district leader, Elder Taufer, talked to one of the counselors in our branch presidency, and he came and talked to the three of us. He said that the need for me to be a part of things overrode the need to practice their language when they were around me. He promised that their learning would be blessed, and that they wouldn't fall behind by considering me.

It was only two months out of eighteen, but a lot of what happened during the other sixteen months had similarities. And I still survived.

I did get banged up a little.

Review retrospective: Gin Blossoms

I am only giving one week to the Gin Blossoms, even though I gave two to The All-American Rejects. That is partly because of some of the other posts that I have already written, and also partly because I have not written a book or screenplay inspired by the Gin Blossoms at this time.

Regardless, this post will involve some comparisons with the two, as examples of different ways of relating to bands. 

In many ways my relationship with the Gin Blossoms is similar to my relationship with The All-American Rejects: their music touches me emotionally, I loved them instantly, and suddenly as I started finding new music it was there from old favorites as well. Their "Don't Change For Me" holds a similar place for me as AAR's "I Wanna".

The differences are largely a matter of time. I initially fell for the Gin Blossoms much sooner; "Hey Jealousy" came out in 1992, versus "Swing, Swing" in 2002 (though "I Wanna" is two years older than "Don't Change For Me"). 

Also, the Gin Blossoms are older. They are on average about ten years older than me, and the Rejects are about ten years younger. The younger ones are closer to the bulk of the bands I review, though there are no hard and fast rules.

One aspect of this is that the Gin Blossoms pass through life stages ahead of me, and so I sometimes will find a song waiting for me. I knew it was there, but it didn't feel the same way, and then I catch up. 

That is not always an age-related phenomenon, but it is something that I feel with the Gin Blossoms, and something that has grown.

In addition, there has been more direct and networked connection with Gin Blossoms. I have reviewed some bands because of recommendations from Mike Kennerty, and he is the one Reject I have spoken to. 

On the other hand, the Gin Blossoms are the reason that I have reviewed The Odds, The Paul & John, and Marshall Crenshaw. That is without even getting into anyone's side projects, like Jesse Valenzuela solo or Honeygirl for Scott Johnson, or opening bands at shows. They are why I listened to Gas Giants and Northey Valenzuela (no reviews for them at this time, but there are also no regrets).

There has been a surprising amount of Twitter following out of that. People who have been professional musicians for years have followed me and I have been in on conversations -- joking and serious -- with them. 

That's kind of a trip, but it started with a concert where not only did I finally get to see the band play, but I had close encounters with each of them. I'm not saying all of them would recognize me, and certainly not that we are best friends, but there is nonetheless a sense of connection and trust.

One of the things I appreciate most is them bringing Scott Hessel, who started as a touring drummer, into the band. A lot of bands have a hard time with that. Sometimes I get it, but sometimes it is beautiful to see that affirmation of confidence and trust.

(Yes, I am more aware of this because of Richie Ramone. Yes, I still wish nothing but good things for Phil Rhodes.)

I'm glad they're still around. I hope that's true for a long time to come.

Songs for the week:

"Don't Change For Me" -- This is the opener to their 2010 album, No Chocolate Cake. It sprang out and me right away and filled me with hope and good will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orBjBiqiKDI

"Lost Horizons" -- I associate this one strongly with the trip to go see them in early 2013, and I am so glad I did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z10lH4fJEGY

"29" --  I've been past 29 for a long time, but the sentiments still work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7psoiaBkw

"Til I Hear It From You" -- Probably their most famous, and definitely aching, but what I really love is the way the rhythm dominates on the bridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sx32alzeE

"Not Only Numb" -- Again, this is a band that has endured, but they don't define themselves solely by the things that have hurt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF_KQcZEwLI

"Miss Disarray" -- Because sometimes I am a hard-to-pin-down mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4yfajEw7Mo

"Hey Jealousy" -- Not the first song that caught my attention, but the one that cemented that this was a band for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah5gAkna3jI

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/concert-review-gin-blossoms.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-gin-blossoms-and-i.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/01/creating-set-list.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2019/08/album-review-mixed-reality-by-gin.html

Deconstructing music writing: Mumford & Sons

"Louise, people in this country aren't interested in details. They don't even trust details. The only thing they trust is headlines." -- Senator Kevin Keeley, The Birdcage

Lately I have been seeing a lot of reactions that are missing the point spectacularly. That's actually something I am going to be exploring more in the Sunday blog. 

For this blog, it makes more sense to start the mission stuff Monday. Since I discovered a not particularly well-written but still interesting article that seems pertinent, today just might be a great day to practice some critical thinking.

Critical thinking often involves reading beyond headlines.

"How Mumford & Sons became the most annoying band in rock, by Ed Power, through Yahoo! Life but from The Telegraph:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/mumford-sons-became-most-annoying-115922410.html

The first thing to consider is how much we want to take from the byline, and honestly that should be limited. I can think of some wonderful, concise, erudite pieces that I have read through multiple papers and sites, and there is not one of those sources that has not also published some crap that was overly biased or poorly researched or both. 

Paying attention to author names can be more helpful over time. Certainly, various writers have patterns, but it is also really common for them to have regular beats. As new topics of interest come up, you will need to expand your pool.

Do pay attention when you are reading to who is writing and for whom, but don't get too hung up on it.

My skepticism with this article started in the first sentence, when he says that the band's most recent album "choked out at Number 2". While hitting Number 1 is obviously preferred, lots of albums never get as far as 2. That makes "choked out" seems prejudicial. To be fair, calling them the "most annoying" is prejudicial too.

A desire to be colorful comes through the entire article. Some flair and style is wanted, especially for a lifestyle/entertainment piece, but I feel like it gets over done here, with too much insertion of the author. Therefore, I will now be kind of skeptical of things written by Ed Power (though not just for style), but also, I have been pretty skeptical of Yahoo! for a while. 

(I am afraid I get various English papers mixed up, but I am thinking that The Telegraph is probably not the best one.)

What I will say about this writing style is that the article length could probably be reduced by 35% without any loss of clarity, and that the extra does not significantly add to the entertainment value. 

(Regular readers may have their own thoughts about my tangents, I know.)

At the end of the third paragraph we finally get some context, that banjo player Winston Marshall has created some controversy by praising Andy Ngo's recent book.

This is where context is really helpful. If you already know who Andy Ngo is, it makes more sense. Ngo has built his career on lying about Antifa (and milkshake ingredients), inflating injuries, and being the token person of color for fascist groups that technically focus more on sexism, but you know you don't have to scratch down very far to find the racism. I mean, white nationalism doesn't automatically have to be racist, right? (That was sarcasm.)

Ngo has some history with Portland, so he is going to stick out a little more for me, but why would a banjo player in a twee pub-sounding band care about Ngo or his "brave" book?

The context given and the link to Jordan Peterson is probably the strongest part of the writing for this article, and yet it misses the landing when there is a chance to stick it. 

Yes, Power tells you that three of the band members were photographed with Jordan Peterson three years ago, and tells you that Peterson has controversial views. He then moves on to pointing out how hatred of Mumford & Sons is similar to hatred of Ed Sheeran and Coldplay, then adds more colorful similes about how the annoyance caused by this band is deeper.

It would have been more to the point to note that the specific controversy with Peterson relates to his decrying of political correctness, especially with its threat to masculinity. Peterson believes that single men tend to become violent, therefore a society that doesn't push monogamy on women (thus giving women too much choice and freedom) is attempting to feminize men. The backlash to that is how you get Donald Trump!

(Yes, I am paraphrasing, but not as much as you'd hope.)

That someone who likes Jordan Peterson would also praise the writer who sympathizes with the Proud Boys is super logical, and might be a thread worth following. 

Instead, there are several lines of text about other bands that also got popular, and how interviewing two of the "Sons" was a bad experience for Power, and disrespectful to him. The most important thing that he points out is that the band members are "posh", but it takes him a while to get back to that.

That was actually the most interesting part. I had read that they came from money; I had not realized how much money. Two things with that:

1. The reason I knew was a Twitter conversation that mentioned how when the band was first starting out they kept not taking off, where you would have expected them to go away; then things worked out and they hit it big. They could do that because of deep pockets. There is a whole conversation to be had on whether we want all of our art and entertainment to come from the children of wealthy parents.

2. It makes a lot of sense when wealthy British people sympathize with patriarchy. I bet you can think of some examples.

The other part that gets interesting is a quote from Marshall on whether he would perform for Trump. Marshall gave a long-winded, twisting non-answer about being irritated with everything being political. (So he'd want to, but political correctness would get in his way is the only reasonable conclusion.)

That does correlate with point 2, but it seems to be part of the same conversation where Marshall defends Peterson, saying he is perceived as right-wing, but it's not true, and Marshall doesn't care about the politics; it's the psychology.

That is partly true; Peterson himself says he is not right-wing, but a classic British liberal. It is also true that you can be mostly liberal but also still classically sexist and misogynist (also racist), however, using psychology to justify that is inherently political.

Some more fluff follows about observing a concert, which I think tells us that Power feels the Mumford spell, though does not want to admit it. Finally, we have this conclusion:

"So yes, by all means, criticise Mumford & Sons for their politics and their outfits. But perhaps we should stop short of telling people what sort of music they are or are not allowed to like."

It did not take all of that to get there. I am not sure that was ever the problem.

Also, Power objects to the use of "Irish" in one criticism, but not to the use of the R-word. I assume the objection is that Mumford & Sons is not Irish (though they are kind of trying to sound Irish, I think), and maybe Brits don't care about that word, but it felt like an additional missed point.

My take:

Most importantly, quoting that British spelling of "criticize" is really bugging me. 

About the band, a while ago there was this chart of "old-timey" bands, rating groups like The Lumineers and Punch Brothers on their old-timeyness. I found it very amusing and am disappointed that it is no longer up.

I had previously only heard one song of the band. Having listened to them for this post, I now know it was "Little Lion Man". I would have thought of them as old-timey, but I see now that the others were all based in the US. This is a different flavor; maybe our retro outfits didn't make a dent over there. I have no idea.

Regardless, I think there is a sense of the old fashioned instruments and waistcoats being a little precious. If they get moderately famous maybe people think it's charming, but perhaps getting super-famous does bring on hate, when it feels like you have stepped outside of your station. The British hate that.

Are they the most annoying? I would have to be more plugged in to know. However, if their wealthy backgrounds make it easy for them to ignore social issues and think they are better than they are, would that make them insufferable? Indeed.

But all I have to do is not listen to them, which is easy. If I were a paid music writer, I might not be able to escape it, and I might even have annoying interactions with band members (that would be so much more annoying if I then started tapping my feet at a show).

So some sympathy for Ed Power, but I think you should do better as a writer, even if Yahoo! and The Telegraph are fine with you as is.

ETA: Check out https://preparedspork.blogspot.com as we address "cancel culture"!

Entering adulthood single

As I re-examine my past, I am starting to see that I was more attractive than I realized.

By this, I don't mean simply that pictures from then don't look as bad to me now. That is a thing, but had been for a long time. Even in grade school I remember being puzzled by how much I hated my school pictures each year, but then when they were last year's pictures they didn't seem so bad. 

No, in addition to that, I have to acknowledge that the boys that I liked generally liked being with me. I found many reasons to explain that away.

I should do a post bragging on that. I may later. There is stuff coming up where it will fit better.

One sister has recently expressed some admiration that I hung out with various hot boys. I did, but to do that I basically neutered myself. That was what I learned from first grade: if a boy knows you like him, it's gross. Having since learned that I was starting out at "gross", liking boys had to be completely off the table if I was going to even be able to exist in the presence of half the population of the school.

I definitely was fat, though not as fat as I mentally pictured myself.

It is pretty accurate that a lot of people -- especially male people -- will write you off for being fat. 

And yet, fat people do date and get married and some get around in ways that I would not have based on my religious upbringing, but nonetheless there are a lot of options out there. I am not sure which ones were open to me.

Did I need to say something to make that happen or signal something? If there were rules, I did not know them.

I don't have as many regrets here as I could, because looking back so much of dating and crushes was stupid, and so many of my friends had bad, stressful, humiliating experiences. I am not sure I would have enjoyed that. 

However, those friends also have significant others and children. I believe I could have enjoyed that, though I also worry that I would have been too messed up inside to have not messed all of that up very badly.

I would have a very had time forgiving myself for having children as badly screwed up as I was. I am not sure that I would have been able to prevent it. 

That is as dark as I get, right there. If I had gotten what I wanted, how much pain would I have caused? How much would I have regretted it?

The more pertinent question is probably whether I could have healed faster. I don't even mean healing all the way, but could I have gotten well enough soon enough to get married and have kids and for it to be a good thing? 

Even if the answer is yes, I fought healing pretty hard.

My main frustration now is that a lot of what I lost was due to things that were not true, and truths that I did not recognize. I don't want that to ever happen again. This may be part of my bent toward over-analyzing everything, but I would rather know. I would rather get it right the first time, and not keep trying to figure it out years later. 

This may be too ambitious. 

One of the most disappointing books from the Long Reading List was Kevin Renner's In Search of Fatherhood: A Mother Lode of Wisdom from the World of Daughterhood. In the interview I read, he said that if any woman would tell him about her relationship with her father, he could predict her current relationship. 

There was nothing in the book to back that up. There were women who'd had great fathers so no one measured up, and women with bad fathers who found good husbands, plus many good and bad current relationships that seemed like reflections of their foundational relationships. 

There are lots of possibilities. 

I think it is fair to say that when you feel like your father is always dissatisfied with you, and also he does not treat your mother well, that is not great for a girl. I don't think it's great for a boy either. 

But I do not believe we have to be trapped by it.

Which is not to say that finding one's way out of the trap is easy.

My big brag is that I have never been attracted to guys who reminded me of my father. Suck on that, Freud! (Yes, I get the irony.)

However, I have found myself trying to win approval from cold and narcissistic men, thinking that if I was good enough, I could make them respect me. 

Also, I recently read something about someone who had similar problems with her father. While she was acting out in ways I never have, some of her thought processes felt a bit close for comfort. 

It's a process, and this might be the area where I have made the least tangible progress.

Still here.

Things that helped me on the way

I have mentioned feeling irritation as I start recapping events, because it feels like I have already written about them so many times. That is true, but it is also true that I am finding things this time around that I didn't find before. 

I never thought about how I used to recognize cars and remember details about them, and that it only stopped after the traumatic event that related directly to cars. I wrote something about maybe not concentrating well, and then remembered how my grades improved after my father and I reconciled that first time. Previously I'd attributed it to a normal cycle for a gifted child who had a hard time learning and maintaining good study habits. That could be a logical explanation. Maybe.

It is disconcerting to look back and notice things that may show a worse impact and more harm, especially when the material is -- I thought -- very familiar. It probably is safer to notice those things now.

Ultimately, I have survived. There are a lot of different factors in that. These posts have been mostly about the things that hurt and their impact, and we are approaching a point where it will be more about the healing. First, I want to dedicate at least one post to some of the things that helped. 

My faith helped a lot. That includes my specific religion.

There was great protection from both the Word of Wisdom and chastity, because between my tendency toward addiction, demonstrated family tendency toward alcoholism, and the combination of my desire for romance and my poor self-esteem... there was just a minefield of potential tragic decisions there. 

I am grateful for that, but not nearly as much as I am grateful for the relationship that I built with God, and prayer, and the meaning that I have seen in life, and the guidance I have felt through the Holy Ghost. That has been a source of strength and joy and something that has pulled me back from the abyss many times. 

Even as a 14 year old girl with a lot of pain, I knew that it helped. 

I also believe that gave me my sense of morality and ethics, where I have generally made choices that I didn't have to regret in terms of how I treated people. Of course, if some of that also made it easy to be self-effacing when I needed to shore myself up, society does that too; that is probably why religion so frequently does it.

I was also super smart.

Yes, that is a factor in the over analysis and the ability to pull helpful things from books (though I believe inspiration plays a large part in that), but also, there was a limit to how much other things could get to me when there was always something interesting to learn. When I was lonely, there were books, and as technology makes finding more obscure material ever easier, that has also been a repeated source of joy.

I am finding it harder to maintain my previous belief that I am probably neurotypical. I am not sure that it matters at this point, but if so, it probably helped me more than it hurt. It may also have led to another thing...

My socialization was spotty.

A lot of people that I met when young weren't that nice. I generally chose to be alone instead of dealing with them. Okay, "choosing" implies that I knew that people who were mean to you were not always doing it to get you to leave, but I might have still chosen solitude. 

Now, there was probably a downside to this, in that sometimes I miss nuances to social conventions and there are skills I don't have. At the same time, I have never had a "frenemy", and I think I am better off that way. 

The people I bonded with have been good people, for the most part, and I still like them. I know people who have been hurt by friends. Nope, that's what family is for; make good friends!

You may notice that all of those core helps have potential down sides built in. Yes, that happens, but I still feel that it worked out overall. I still like myself, which is radical and revolutionary even when it should be elementary.

My dear readers, so many of you have expressed ways in which my experiences resonate with you, despite varying degrees of severity. You may have room for a lot of healing.

What I want to impress upon you is that there are reasons that you have made it to here too. I can imagine some of you possibly (with self-deprecating humor) declaring that what got you hear was denial. 

That may be at least partially true, but there is some level of fortitude or concentration that worked. Sometimes the primary difference between a weakness and a strength is application. And time.

I hope you will notice the things that are good about you, and be glad about them. If you need some help, maybe I can over-analyze it for you.

Mostly, I want you to know that I wish you well, and I have faith that it is possible.

The first cracks in the picture

I stated previously that I believe that what happened at 14 was the last major part of my formation, so that what happened at 17 and a few things after were just reinforcement.

Assuming that is correct, it makes sense that some of the initial steps in healing happened not long after that. I had some changes in perception.

The first one I really remember happened during my second year of college. I was on my way back to the dorm one night, and I saw a possum (I've decided the "o" in front is pointless) heading into the bushes. I started peeking around trying to get a better look at it, because I love animals and I think seeing them is cool. I didn't see it though, so I gave up and went up the steps to the door.

While I was unlocking the door, I heard an exclamation behind me. Apparently the possum had started following me up the steps, someone else saw it and exclaimed, and that sent the possum running off.

(They are very shy creatures, generally harmless, and good for pest control. Please do not hurt possums if you see them. However, I had been checking it out, and perhaps it was returning the favor.)

Anyway, this girl was really excited and said she had never seen anything like that. 

I punctured her balloon and said, really condescendingly, "Oh, they're pretty common around here."

So obnoxious, and it was rotten of me; if she had come along any earlier she would have seen me just as excited about seeing a possum. 

I went and talked it over with my roommate, Claudia. She asked me why I did it.

I think I did it because I was caught off guard and embarrassed that I hadn't noticed the possum behind me when I had just been looking for it, and because being vulnerable felt terribly dangerous. I did that automatically, but then I was left feeling worse. Not only had I made a stranger feel bad, but I had done it by being dishonest. 

That was the year that I realized that I needed to go on a mission, and it was while I was a missionary that I really started to get a feeling for how annoying it is when you won't admit that you are mistaken, or that someone else knew more, or really any time when you try and establish your superiority.

Given my paranoia about being annoying, you would think I would try to avoid that.

I also learned that it can be worse than annoying. I had at least one circumstance where someone insecure was feeling terrible because I seemed to be so unflappable when she was feeling so anxious. It actually caused her pain.

I do not want to hurt people.

As I started learning to show vulnerability and admit weaknesses, the shocking thing was that no one ever moved in for the kill. My father's refusal to ever admit any wrong had been received by me very seriously; there was a terrible danger in doing so.

I may have already sensed in some ways that it kept him from growth. I surely saw that it damaged relationships, but for a long time I still accepted that worldview, with all of the fear that it carried.

Turns out it was fine all along. 

As stressful as it was, I can't rule out that my time of not speaking to my father was helpful, in that no matter how defective I felt, I still knew he was good in this. 

By the same token, I also know that not dealing with him now is better for me, even if those were steps that I took reluctantly. If he hadn't made some choices for me, and if protecting Mom hadn't been a more important priority, I don't know that I would have gotten to the place where I decided I didn't even want to try. 

Now I can see that as good for me.

That is not without push back. Several people have warned me -- mostly with good intentions -- about the regrets I will have for this lost time, especially when he dies. That does not take into account the regrets that I might feel over the knots in my stomach, and the stress and exhaustion and the hits to the self-esteem that come with dealing with him, and of which I have accumulated quite a store. I'm sure there will be weird feelings when he dies, but there are plenty of bad feelings now, and damage, and wistfulness about what having a different father would be like.

Eventually the decision came down to my belief that maintaining a relationship would harm me while not doing him any good. If it could do him good, I would take the harm. If it didn't harm, we would still be in touch. 

And if he needed my help, I would step in anyway, even though it probably would do harm, but not as much harm as it would have done back then, because I have grown.

My growth started with seeing the ways he was wrong.

Review retrospective: The first 100 band reviews, 2013

Well, excluding The All-American Rejects and the bands I saw live, I guess. 

Those needed their own posts because there was so much excitement, plus it gets in more songs. 

Even with the bands who did not became major influences on my life and that I have not seen live, there was still excitement. Going back over that is a trip down memory lane.

While I had not remembered quite how exciting the first year was for concerts, I do remember all of those concerts clearly. I also remember the bands that I really loved and the songs that got to me.

The bands that were just fine, I don't remember as well. That may not be fair, but the bands I really disliked? It's amazing that eight years later I still resent it; you should have spent less time trying to get new listeners, and more time making something worth listening to!

To be fair, I only remembered one of the bands that was just too shallow. In fact there were two, and they blurred together. 

And, if some of them never dug that deep, but they had fun, that's probably okay. Some of these bands have completely disappeared now, even having taken down their links. I may have been one of the last people to check them out. 

That doesn't have to be terrible. Many of the musicians went on to other bands, or they are doing other things for a living but they are having satisfying lives. It can't be a career for everyone, but seeing some of them and the places they got to go even for a short time, it seems pretty cool. I hope those are good memories for them.

My biggest heartbreak for that is the dissolution of The Black Sea. They were excellent. I still have part of their song in my head, but I want to be able to listen to the whole thing, and let other people listen to it, and they removed all traces. 

Before I started this, I was starting to feel a special musical affinity for New Jersey. As I reviewed more bands, I was finding that for Manchester as well. They put out some good bands.

And, it is not quite only Manchester; that includes nearby Leeds and Bolton and the neighboring county, Lancashire. However, New Jersey musicians seem to hang out with Philadelphia musicians a lot too, and maybe some parts of New York (like Long Island), so I think it all works. Regardless, about a tenth of my first 100 bands reviewed were Mancunian or adjacent, with more coming in later reviews.

Some of that is that as bands retweet their reviews, sometimes it inspires other bands to follow you. You can't always know that it was for the review, but there were two things that really made me feel good. They both happened in March, so pretty early on too.

Our Fold (from Bolton) had followed me. They had it set up where you could download their entire catalog so I bumped them up the line, reviewing them a bit sooner than I normally would have. 

Both they and a fan wrote back to tell me I had gotten it right. It was so validating, and only my 18th band reviewed. 

Then, Titors Insignia (from St. Helens, 26 miles from Manchester) followed me, but also messaged me asking me to review them. So flattering, and then a man who worked on a local web site for St. Helens asked if he could share my review. Of course! So my 24th band reviewed (my 23rd review written, because I had doubled up two other bands) was shared in another country.

And really, bands were showing up from all over. I reviewed bands from Turkey, South Africa, Sweden, France, Denmark, Finland, Australia, and Austria, plus lots of people from England, the United States, and a few Canadians.

This is also the year where the songs of the day started. I had really only done that in February 2012 previous. As I was reviewing more, I discovered some Halloween appropriate songs. I thought I would do those and some Misfits in October, and after that it made sense to keep going. I was finding new good music all the time. That was why initially I tried very hard not to repeat, so more could get exposure.

All in all, it was a very auspicious beginning.

Daily songs from reviewed bands 1 - 100

“Honey, Honey” by Chantal Claret -- One of my first non-concert reviews, I did choose her for MCR connections, but I enjoyed her music a lot, especially this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNOe1n1X0TI

“The Voice Inside My Head” by Sky Crawlers -- Turkish punk. One of the earlier bands to follow me and I really liked them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sELI4pr0iE

“I Should've Kissed You” by Color Theory -- Musically I love this song, and personally I relate to it more than I like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdNqOZeg6Ww

“She Goes On” by Our Fold -- They said I was pretty much spot on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U22o4I8F4j4

“Beg, Plead & Pray” by Titors Insignia -- My first requested review. They have some songs that really celebrate football, which probably makes sense for Manchester. This is non-sports related, but I think my favorite of theirs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtBlM110pRY

“Oceans Apart” by Yves Jean -- He's a New Yorker, but he has some Caribbean roots that I think infuse the music and makes it pretty catchy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfJDYq6EWTg

“Dracula's Tango” by Toto Coelo -- Not a band I have reviewed, but one of those songs that made me wonder why so many stations think Halloween is limited to "Monster Mash" and "Thriller", therefore a big part of the start and continuation of songs of the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROtqnIOHMJs

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/03/band-review-our-fold.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/03/band-review-titors-insignia.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/11/halloween-videos-and-misfits-songs.html

I never thought of myself as a Disney princess...

... and if I were going to, I identify most with Belle, because books!

However, Twitter discourse on King Triton has led me to have some new thoughts and remember some old ones.

The Little Mermaid came out in November 1989. I didn't see it until years later, but I seem to remember the trailer ending with Ariel saying "I love you, Daddy." 

Hearing that almost a year into my father not speaking to me punched me right in the heart, but then I had that moment. Just another year and a half later he said he wanted to start over, and I hugged him and felt a flood of happiness and said "I love you."

I don't specifically remember him saying that he loved me back, and of course "starting over" meant not talking about or dealing with or apologizing for anything that had previously happened. All of that perhaps makes it less surprising that the ceasefire didn't last.

People on Twitter have some very strong feelings about whether or not King Triton was an abusive parent, and that had come up recently. Invading Ariel's personal space and destroying all of her treasures is generally the argument for him being abusive, but a lot of people will defend it based on humans being indeed dangerous, plus he sacrificed himself at the end.

Although it took me a while to get to watching the movie, I have now seen both the direct-to-video sequel and prequel. In the first one, we learn that yes, Ariel's mother died because of contact with humans, but it was music-related, so Triton banned music, leading to underground music clubs. Eventually he saw the error of his ways, so that all of his daughters are practicing musical numbers that Ariel messes up because of her traipsing off after humans, another thing to control. Then, in the sequel, a threat to Ariel's daughter Melody is dealt with by walling off the ocean, thus cutting Ariel off from all of her mer-family. 

Whatever the problem, the solution is always more isolation, and more control.

There is a lot of fear; I can feel some compassion for that.

Let me digress again. I started a Talented and Gifted program in 4th grade. I think it was relatively new, and they were experimenting a lot. The next two years the program expanded, but that year it was just a handful of students in one classroom at the junior high. 

The student teacher working with the program arranged some interviews, probably for a public access channel, and I participated. I know my answers during the interview were rambling, but what I really remember is driving back and talking about different things. I don't quite remember the context, but I remember asking if there was such a thing as emotional abuse. She said there was, but it was harder to identify than physical abuse, and I think she also mentioned neglect.

I do not specifically remember her trying to dig for any details on whether she should be worried; it was more respectfully engaging a curious child, which I was. Even if she had done some digging, there was nothing actionable.

Recently a friend has commented that my father was abusive and that it was not my fault. I know the intent was reassurance, and it does mainly work for that. It is still a little uncomfortable accepting the label. 

I mean, he could have been worse.

He could have been better too.

I know his family had its own problems. That didn't help, but that leaves me right back to the previous two points. Being worse and better were both possibilities.

I attribute a lot of the problems to his inability to be happy with himself, but the other factor that is relevant here is that need to be in control and in charge. That is so relevant to toxic masculinity.

One reason we could never win as children is that if we did not do well, he was unhappy with us for that, but if we did excel at something it could lead to him feeling threatened, and would bring some kind of cut.  

None of that is really about being the protector, but if you think providing for and protecting your family requires being in charge, maybe it seems that way, or maybe it just seems like your due. You deserve their fealty for all that you do, including the harm.

That is dominator culture. It isn't really good for the men, even though they are on top. My father has not gotten a lot of happiness out of this.

The first 17 years of my life have taken more than 30 to unravel, but I'm still doing better than him. 

And I still reject it being a contest.

Disowning scoreboard

Obviously, I was the first of my siblings to be disowned. I was not the last, and it wasn't even the last time I was disowned.

Because it was hard to feel welcome when my father was not speaking to me, I tried to stay in Eugene after my first couple of terms at college. Everything went wrong, from not making enough at my job to a roommate stealing food and not paying utilities to the IRS telling me that I did my taxes wrong and they were now charging me interest on what I owed.

My nearby cousins were going up to visit for the day, and I rode along, intending to lay low. However, after two and a half years, my father said he would like to start over. 

There was no apology, but I took it, and it was a huge relief. I felt such love for him then. The other time when it was that clear was when he left my mother. Suddenly people who had always said they liked our father were saying that he was an odd duck. It's not that both weren't true, but I had a clear picture of how much he was cutting himself off from everything, and even though he was still alive, I grieved for him.

That also directly led to all of the other disownings, but it took awhile. 

Because I believed that any additional tension would lead to an irreparable rupture, I had always tried to be extra considerate. Mainly this meant that if I saw an article that I thought would interest him, I sent it along.

It was remarkably stressful. I remember that even when he would send replies to that, and it was almost certain that the message from him was simply a thank you, I would see that I had mail from him and a knot would form in my stomach as I would think "What now?"

Getting along with him was difficult. I remember the last time he drove me to Eugene; he would say something and I would say something building on it, agreeable, and he would still contradict it.

There was great strain when he was not speaking to me, but there was also some relief.

He left in October 1995, my senior year in college. It was my first time attending fall term, and Mom called crying right before I was going to leave for the homecoming game. I still went, but those next few weeks were hard. Staying in school was hard.

We were all struggling, but getting along. There were some visits, especially with my younger sisters as they completed their driving lessons. Three or four years later he moved to The Dalles. We were thinking we should try and visit him, but that was far and he was living with someone whom he hadn't really admitted existed (though we knew).

While we were waffling on that, he sent a message to everyone else angry at them for not visiting and casting them off.  I was not included, because I was the only one who had made an effort. I believe he alluded to my difficulty getting out there (Tri-Met does not service The Dalles). I don't remember how plainly stated that was, but I will give him this credit: he never criticized me for not driving after that.

Our brother wrote back telling him off, and never dealt with him again. Therefore, he is the one who has been disowned the least, with only one occurrence.

Scores: 1 disownment each for five children.

I helped forge a reconciliation with my sisters, pointing out some of the difficulty and arranging a time to visit. As sisters we went, and it could have been worse. We were lucky that one of us fell getting out of the car (it was icy), and that helped break the tension. She wasn't happy about it, but she was a hero.

I think it took six months for the next angry missive to come, because one visit en masse hardly demonstrated filial piety. I brokered reconciliation again, and we eventually worked out more of a regular relationship, always tense, often with sudden demands, but apparently at least good enough. 

Scores: 1 disownment each for my brother and I, 2 for each of my sisters.

That got us through to about the ten year mark of him leaving. 

He had preemptively left one job that might have laid him off (but probably would have given him at least another two years) to try various bad ideas. While usually holding some kind of job, he was running through his pension for supplemental income. He was still married to my mother, and collecting social security as a couple but also still making the house payment, giving her and us a home.

Because they were still legally a couple, he needed her signature to remove the last amount from the pension. He did not say that, and he didn't send the whole document that needed signing, but it was pretty clear. And fine, it was his pension, except that when he was done with that he was surely going to target the house next. That was scary. 

We consulted a lawyer, who recommended being straightforward and asking if he wanted the house. We could try and sort all that out amicably. 

BOOM!

Now I was disowned with my sisters. In many ways the messaging was the same -- packages and letters will be returned unread -- but the part about us only caring about his money and what we could get from him was new. Also, I was no longer a neutral party who could broker a peace.

I cared about him, but protecting Mom was more important. If he was going to be volatile, even attempting to contact him was risky.

The initial visit with the lawyer was on Valentine's Day, but it was actually March when we filed, and things took a while. I think the main reason he signed over the house to Mom was to avoid spending more time (and disclosing more) on discovery, but that worked for us.

I had told myself that after that was secure, I would reach out to him, but it would have to be for a better relationship, where I wasn't always having to avoid setting him off. 

That probably wouldn't have been possible anyway, but when everything was signed and completed, I found that I was too tired to reach out to him. I just didn't have it in me.

Score: 1 disownment for my brother, 2 for me, 3 for my sisters.

(Though if we are making it a contest, my first one should count for extra.)

My older sister may still come up with a fourth, because she is in touch with him. He was working in China when there was an earthquake, and she reached out. 

I could have. I got an announcement for his 50th high school reunion, and I scanned it in and e-mailed it to him, because I thought he should have it. He did write saying he already had gotten it through another source, but I did get a wedding announcement from him when he remarried.

Well, "wedding announcement" is an overstatement. It was an e-mail with a date and an attached photo of them holding the marriage license. 

I believe if I had written back, we could be in touch too. I didn't. That wasn't even to avoid the tension;  the real problem was that I could not think of anything good to say. "I hope you treat this one better than you treated the last one!" is not exactly "Congratulations!" And I knew he wouldn't, and he didn't. He is now twice-divorced.

That's without counting all of the divorces from his kids.

But I did still ultimately make a choice -- even if I let my exhaustion make the choice -- that I was done.

That was a step, though of course it was more complicated than that.

Driven

Weird tidbit about me: for a long time I never noticed anything about cars. Someone would give me a ride, and my sisters would ask what they drove, and I had no idea, not even the color. (I would remember if it were a truck instead of a car.) This could be inconvenient when you were trying to find someone in a parking lot.

I am better about it now, but what makes it more weird is that I have such vivid mental images of all of the family cars before my father disowned me. 

While this whole thing is focused on memories, the absence of memories in some areas has proven pretty telling as well.

I would say this clash did more damage to my relationship with driving than my relationship with my father.

When I say we had been clashing more, I can remember at least two other instances in the year before where I had annoyed him and gotten the silent treatment for a few days. With one of those, it was again quite clear that he wanted to hit me, though he didn't, possibly because once again there was another person there.

I also remember a minor conflict about feeling that he didn't care about my PSAT score.

For the PSAT, SAT, and ACT, I was in the top one percentile on all of them. He was already not speaking to me when I took the other two, though, so this was about the PSAT. 

I know we were never big at praise but I felt like it deserved some mention. After being upset, I kind of did get some recognition, but even when he did not get outright angry, I know I was always irritating. 

As I type this, I think I understand my hangup where I always worry about being annoying.

As we had been having more conflict, it was kind of weird that I accepted this fight with my father as so final. It must have been because of him cornering me alone in the kitchen the next day to tell me how disgusted he was with me. Previous times there was conflict, and then there was just silence for a few days. This time, he wanted to deliver the killing blow. Mission accomplished!

I had a few bad dreams early on, mainly on the theme of adoption: either that I was not really his, and not accepted that way, or that he had given me up, so I had been rejected that way. The most haunting dream was one where he had stabbed me, and I was lying on the floor, just outside the kitchen. The phone was right there but he had unplugged it, so I could not call for help. 

You're thinking the aftermath of a painful physical wound in the same place where a painful psychological wound was received seems pretty straightforward. Yes, but not having the ability to get help made it worse. Realistically, that part was not really new. My training that no one wanted to deal with my distress went way back. He had played a role in that, though that was not exclusively him.  

When I first found out about Adverse Childhood Experiences, I did go through and score myself. The only thing that I counted as an event was my father disowning me at 17. Another year, and I would have been safely past the cutoff, except that there was that foundation.

(That is not to discredit anything about the ACE study, which I find very helpful; there's just always more. I would be interested in studies on trauma occurring between legal maturity at 18 and brain maturity at 25.)

This is why I said that the last really formative trauma was the thing that happened when I was 14. Here, at just a few days shy of 17, it was mainly confirmation of what I had already always known: there was something wrong about me and I could not rely on my father.

This may have been the first time where I was pretty sure that it was not all my fault, though. I knew that it shouldn't have been so necessary for him to be in control of me. Also, since he had said I did not have to drive with him right away, he should have stuck to that, but his ego was more important than my needs. As much as I was in the habit of suppressing my anger and taking all of the blame on me, I did still kind of know. 

I did quit McDonald's, possibly unreasonably, but a short while later I got a new job at K-Mart. I kept up with my extracurricular activities. I did not throw myself into academics, though that would probably have been more productive. 

Also, the extracurricular that became the most important was the one that kept me busy meeting other people's needs.

I went through a phase of over-preparing, which mainly meant not traveling light. Once for an away game with a longer drive I had four Walkmans on me, just in case some of the players wanted one. I also had a music book so I could use one of the practice rooms at the school while I was waiting for it to be time to leave -- because I was not going home in between -- and some homework books. I kept materials with me for doing homework far more often than paid off.

Concentration was probably an issue for a while.

I don't think the preparedness was in case something bad happened; it was too late for that. That was about trying to be everything for everyone, and also always having something to do. I may not have wanted to spend too much time alone with my thoughts.

I maintain that I was already on my way to that, but what had started off as nervousness about driving transformed into a much worse fear and a deep shame. 

It is better, but I still don't drive.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/02/failure-to-communicate.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/02/wild-abandon.html

Thanks Dad

Once again I feel really irritated recapping one of these life-forming events. 

Initially I thought it was frustration that going over these before still hasn't been enough, but I think another potential reason is that I haven't been over these since I let myself start feeling anger. Maybe that is why the previous rounds weren't enough.

It makes me angry that this happened. It makes me angry that it affected me so much. I did not think I was currently angry with my father, but here is anger. It might be old, but it is still accessible.

Here we go.

I like symmetry. Because my birthday is on the 17th, my 17th birthday was the one I was looking forward to the most: 17 on 17. There are ways in which 16 or 18 could have made more sense, but what's the point of being a big nerd if weird things don't interest you?

I only mention that because it made it worse. 

Previously, I remembered it as happening on the day before my birthday, but this happened on Saturday, and the internet tells me my birthday that year was on a Tuesday. I remember that next morning that was not my birthday really clearly, and then there must have been a lot of stuff that was uncomfortable that I don't remember at all.

I did not want to practice driving with my father. We had been clashing more as I got older, and I was already scared enough of driving without adding my fear of him to that.

My fear of driving largely had to do with the understanding that I could cause harm if I messed up. I could hit something. 

My fear of my father was largely this tension about things you couldn't do and areas you couldn't cross, but also it was cultivated. He liked being scary. There was a line he repeated from a Cosby record all the time: "The old gunfighter, Jack."

I had completed driver's ed already, and I'd had a fair amount of practice. I still felt very nervous about it, which is probably why I had been 16 for almost an entire year and was still not licensed. Obviously I had a lot of work and activities going on, but also, practicing with my father just seemed like a terrible idea.

I know this hurt his ego -- he thinks he is a good teacher (I disagree) -- but initially he agreed that I could practice with Mom for a while before I started driving with him. 

When I tried my first session with Mom, the car wouldn't start. I'm guessing it was vapor lock, but there was an aborted practice session. 

The Saturday before my birthday, Dad wanted me to go around the block. It did not seem like a good idea, but neither did disagreeing with him. I got in the car and he stayed on the outside, and this time it started right up. Great. 

It was parked on the street. I drove past three houses to the top of the cul-de-sac, but was having trouble navigating the circle, and could not get around this other car parked on the street. 

I don't know how relevant this was, but all of my other previous experience had been in an automatic, and the Colt had a manual transmission. It was definitely jerkier. Anyway, I hit the car. 

There's one fear.

I wanted out of the car. Dad slammed the door back and I know he was going to hit me, but people were coming out of houses. The man whose car I hit was very nice, there was no damage, but I got out of there and walked back home and closed myself in my room. I successfully avoided my father for the rest of the day.

If that were all that had happened, I think I could have gotten over it. 

The next morning I got up early and Dad found me in the kitchen and told me that he couldn't believe how stupid I was, and that he was ashamed of me. 

From then on, he just didn't talk to me. That lasted from January 1989 to July 1991. 

That border had been crossed, and that's what was on the other side.

On the plus side, I never had to drive with him again. That was successfully off the table. 

On the minus side, the hangups I had about driving got a lot worse, and it was a deep source of shame as well.

I used to feel a lot of guilt about the strain it put on my parents' marriage, because although he did not try to throw me out then, when I went away to college he wanted to turn my room into an office, and Mom didn't let him.

I feel less guilt about that now because as far as we can tell his second affair had started already by this time. I think the long-term cheating was ultimately more damaging.

At the time, it felt pretty clear to me that it was an issue of control. That is why we had been clashing more. In a way, his giving up on me gave me some freedom. It also made being at home unhappy, and tense, and talking about family awkward and talking about driving and not driving even more awkward. 

In discussing it with a friend years later, she was surprised that he would call me stupid, because that's the last thing I was. I thought that was a weird reaction, because how much do people worry about the accuracy of insults when they are trying to hurt you? However, it may be worth noting that when my inner critic sounds off, "stupid" is always right near the top of the list. I think the order it goes in is "Fat, stupid, ugly, weak, worthless"... I may be forgetting some. 

I guess I knew that if I got into a car with him, something like that would happen. Later, after we were speaking again, I worked very hard to keep things smooth, because I felt that if we ever fought again, we wouldn't recover. That came true too.

Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but more on that next time.

Review retrospective: So many concerts!

I had doubts about fitting decent coverage of the first 100 reviews into a single post anyway. I remembered it as an exciting time with some great bands, where some of the later hundreds just aren't going to measure up. 

I had forgotten how awesome it was concert-wise.

Already covered, my first band reviewed was The All-American Rejects, and there were four other bands associated with that concert. (The concert was at the end of October 2012, but I started getting reviews up in December because I was still figuring things out.) They got two posts and two weeks of songs.

I have also indicated that the band for my next concert, the Gin Blossoms, will also get their own week. 

It may be worth mentioning that in early October I wrote about seeing The Fixx at Music Millennium, and in February 2014 I was going to see Reggie and the Full Effect at Branx. There were cool, important to me things about both of those shows, and I did blog about The Fixx though I did not consider it a review.

That makes an exciting, extended concert-going period, but still does not tell you that between Rejects and Reggie, between January and December 2013, I saw twelve different shows. 

It was not technically one show a month, though it was mostly spread out. Sometimes things got a little tight.

Surprisingly, it was only seven different venues, with four at the Roseland, three at the Crystal Ballroom (so seven on Burnside), plus one each at the Rose Garden, Spirit Mountain, the Schnitz, and Wonder Ballroom, plus one at The Haunt, which was a "haunted house", but a seasonal set up one, not a real one.

It involved 28 different bands.

It involved more healing. At some point after I got to see The Presidents and the Daddies, I received new wounds. I had tickets for Keane and that was canceled when Tom needed to go to rehab, and I was at a Jimmy Eat World show with Maria and she needed to leave early because she had work the next morning and it was going late. 

I got to see them both. I knew it was exciting at the time, and I blogged about it twice (with some wrong predictions), but eight years later I had forgotten how exciting it was.

I can't even link to all of the reviews; it would be overkill. They will all be in the spreadsheet I am working on, and a link to that will go up when it is finished.

I can't do a song for each band this week; that would take a month! I am sure some will come up later. I am taking notes. 

Of course, I did songs for all of them then, and sometimes multiple songs. I didn't end up at the concerts by accident. Some of these bands meant a lot to me.

I will give a summary of the concerts.

Gin Blossom: Spirit Mountain Casino, Ambrosia opened. Went with Jeana and Angela. Encountered everyone in the band and talked to two of them.

The Killers: The Rose Garden, M83 and Tegan and Sara opened. Went with Karen. With the openers, it was interesting to see that bands you can enjoy live can be totally not your thing recorded.

Keane: The Crystal Ballroom. Youngblood Hawke opened. Went alone. (first time, except for some Rose Festival shows)

The Gaslight Anthem: Wonder Ballroom. Matt Mays and Westchester United Football Club opened. Went alone. I had wanted to see them their previous time in town, but found out about it too late. Both opening bands were touching in different ways.

Mindless Self Indulgence: Roseland. The Red Paintings opened. Went alone. I briefly interacted with everyone in MSI Lynz and Kitty were especially wonderful -- and I met The Red Paintings singer, Trash. He explained to me why he doesn't hug people, and then he hugged me. I don't know if he decided I really needed it or that he wouldn't mind it.

Farewell My Love: The Haunt. Headliner was Snow White's Poison Bite. Also on the bill, Kissing Candace and Chomp Chomp Attack!, plus two local bands, Whispers of Wonder and We Rise the Tides. Went alone. This was my first time going to see a band because they had followed me and I was going to review them, as opposed to being previously invested.

Fall Out Boy: Roseland. New Politics opened. Went alone. Talked to David Boyd of New Politics for a bit and was really impressed with him.

Jimmy Eat World: Crystal Ballroom. X Ambassadors opened. Went alone. That guarantees not having to leave early.

Adam Ant: Roseland. Prima Donna opened. Went with Julie, Maria, and Bonnie. Talked to Kevin of Prima Donna for a bit. They were a find.

Pet Shop Boys: The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. No opening act. Went with Julie, Maria, and Tripp. That show was a trip, but this band does what they want, in their own way, and I respect that. Shockingly, it was their first time playing in Portland.

AFI: Roseland. Touché Amoré opened. Went alone. It was Halloween and everyone in Touché Amoré was dressed as a breakfast item. While I like AFI better musically, I will always have a fondness for Touché Amoré from that night.

ETA: Looking back at the pictures, only two of them were breakfast. The other three were fast food. Still delightful.

Third Eye Blind: Crystal Ballroom. TEAM* opened. Went alone, but I had interacted with some of the musicians on Twitter, and seeing the way they each got their moment felt really good. Also interesting talking to the TEAM* singer there.

Songs for this week:

“All These Things That I've Done” by The Killers -- This was a really good moment in the concert, and it's a fun song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZTpLvsYYHw

“The Lovers Are Losing” by Keane -- I love a lot of songs by this band, but this is the one that comes to mind now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXH5yL8bDbU

“Great Expectations” by The Gaslight Anthem -- They are good overall, but it is really about two songs for me, this and "59 Sound", but this one came first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2Leo9HSaGQ

“Goodbye, Copenhagen” by New Politics -- Also a really good band, but this is one that really stuck with me and never got an official release. They are from Copenhagen so it is kind of about leaving home to pursue their careers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRJbv_p0Vk

“Feral Children” by Prima Donna -- I love this band and have done multiple songs by them, but I have avoided this one because it is a little too sexy. Be warned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsAnnPuqhgU

“Deep Slow Panic” by AFI -- Many good songs here, but this is one that was new at the time and really spoke to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llVl-SKdMec

“Come To My House” by TEAM* -- I had forgotten about this one until I started going back over old reviews. It's good to go back sometimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1H2xLXygBw

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fixx-live-at-music-millennium.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-year-of-magical-concert-going.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/06/concert-going-music-writing-update.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/10/one-story-of-one-band.html

 

 

 

One for Josh

There is another nagging thought here, though not specifically about me.

It comes from another two things that could have been separate but are tying together. I am swimming in a sea of synchronicity right now.

During "RememberSeptember, on October 11th (so really #RememberSeptemberExtendedDanceMix), I did a memorial for different people that I have lost from school days. I knew I had to do it because of other memories that had been coming up involving people who were already gone.

Joshua Westhaver was a big part of that. 

Along with those memories and talking with a friend, I was remembering Fiddler On The Roof and realized that I did not have stage fright, which was kind of interesting, and it made me think more about all of those drama and acting adjacent memories 

I remembered something I wanted to share. I thought I would go to a blog that had been set up in his memory, http://memoriesofjoshuawesthaver.blogspot.com/. I did not know how to post there, and it wasn't that big a thing, so I was going to leave it alone, except for that nagging thought...

I don't remember Josh being in Fiddler. 

That seems weird to me. Of all of my friends who did any acting or stage management or anything, Josh was the most involved. He was in plays at Aloha, including the title role in Barnum our senior year, and he did several after graduation. He even has one film credit:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2310312/

Fiddler was 5th grade, and I remember his showing surprising acting ability in 6th grade; that was the memory I wanted to share.

Actually, everything we did together was creative in some way.  

Let's go back in time.

Josh and I were at the same school but not in the same class in first grade. I think we became friends in second grade, so after I had suffered social death the year before, and before Jennie moved here in third grade. He did not get in on sleepovers, but we were all three friends, and the primary crew for Graveyard Airlines games in 4th grade. Then when Stephen moved here in fifth grade, he joined us.

My earliest memory of Josh -- and the story that I told at his memorial service -- was that the first time we really talked, we came up with superhero identities for ourselves. The next day he returned with pictures he had drawn of our costumes. 

I told that story because on the way down I was with another friend and we were reminiscing. She said how adorable it was. Well, to adults, sure, but for 2nd graders it was epic. There's a difference.

I knew he could act in 6th grade, because we did a sketch for English class together. Maybe it was about someone having a need. The way we did it, Josh was looking for a hat and he came into my combination footwear and head wear shop, It's Raining Hats and Clogs. At the time he had a Greek fisherman's cap that he wore all the time, but he took it off so he could buy it in the store.

This is why I remember his acting: I remember him coming into the "store" and looking at a shoe display and saying "I need a hat, not shoes!" Except that there was no shoe display. The only prop we had was his hat. Well, I might have made a sign, but that might have just been some drawing; I don't think we used it. However, the way his eyes went, you knew exactly where the shoe display was, and could picture it. It was clearly one of those short round ones. And the mind is definitely filling that in based on what you would normally encounter in a shoe store at that time (about 1984), but still, he was so convincing! And intense. I don't think my performance was great because I was trying not to laugh. I didn't know how deeply into the role he would get. 

That year we also worked on a short animated film for homeroom, The Garden Tragedy. It was actually my second animated film, because I had done one in 4th grade for TAG using clay. For this we used construction paper, ten years before South Park. And it wasn't just us; we worked with Karel, Lynn, and Marian, but I think we did some extra. I remember going to his house once, and I assume it was for that.

And then the boundaries changed, and a handful of us went to Five Oaks, while everyone else went to Mountain View. By the time we all met up again in high school, somehow our paths never crossed. I don't remember having a single class with Josh. At least one friend from junior high dated him, and I saw him in plays, in school and once after, The Comedy of Errors. 

I went with Jennie, so it would have been a mini-reunion. We should have tracked him down after the show. We didn't want to intrude. 

I didn't know that was the last time I'd see him alive. How could I?

But you never do know.

One of the painful twists in this story is that the friend from whom I found out that Josh was gone, Erin (who was also in that 10th grade drama class, and was so funny) is gone now too. I never saw that coming either.

I should be very clear that there was never any hint of romance between Josh and I, but he was a really good friend. That's not just because he was there when I needed someone, but also because we had such fun, with plenty of weirdness, and he could throw himself all in, to anything you needed.

This feels very much like the end of Stand By Me now. 

It's okay that we ended up walking different paths. I am more happy for what we had than upset that it didn't last, but I would have liked to have talked to him that night.

I really would have liked to see him in The True History of Coca Cola in Mexico. I did find video of The Adventures of Amyman and the Amazing Men -- I have seen him as Gilbert -- but I know there was a lot more to see, and I do feel that loss.

Our time here is precious and unpredictable. If you have something kind or loving or affirming to say, don't wait.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/09/notice-that.html

Getting into management

Lest I give the wrong impression; my friends were not turning their backs on me. We still did some things together. In general, drama productions and the club and all of that took up a lot of time and shaped a lot of the social life.

For my sophomore year, I was not hanging out with anyone anymore. I tried a lot of different clubs. I rattled around at different service opportunities, based on what was posted at school. Most of that did not stick after I started working regularly, but that didn't happen until summer.

Obviously I was already at the point where I started using activities as my entry into socialization, but most of them didn't take enough time.

When I heard that the basketball team was looking for a manager, it seemed like an answer.

On the most basic level, for my needs, it was. It gave me something I could participate in where I had something to offer, and where there was a lot to do. It gave me something to focus on and kept my nights busy. 

With the coaches and some of the fathers, it gave me some men to look up to, though that became much more of an issue the following season. (We will get into that next week.)

There were times when it wasn't so fun, and I didn't know if I wanted to continue. Grant was a big help there. I knew I would finish the season, but was not positive that I would keep doing it. By the end of the basketball season, I offered my skills to the baseball coach. 

He didn't want me, but then the track team snapped me up, and the soccer team recruited me, and I became a three-season non-athlete.

Truly, it was tailor-made for someone who always felt there was something wrong for her, tried to make up for it by taking care of other people, and who was using organized activities and service as a means of feeling like she belonged anywhere.

It had its ups and downs. 

It definitely raised my profile around the school. Lots more people recognized me, which was initially pretty uncomfortable, but not actually bad.

Really, it was quite a ride. My junior year, the basketball team made the Final Four, and still made playoffs the year after that. The soccer team made the State Championship. Both teams had started out with a lot of the players on both the JV and Varsity teams, because there weren't enough players to fill out the roster otherwise. That changed. By my senior year, both of those teams had full rosters and there was also a full Sophomore basketball team. 

I was glad I was there for that, but they weren't my accomplishments.

(Track was different, because there is an overall team score, but from individual events. There were some good wins, and I think some champions, but it played out differently.)

It was not great for self-esteem. Yes, I was able to quickly and efficiently fold sweats and fill cups of water. I could carry things. I was great at caring about people. 

It was not the same as being able to perform a show-stopping musical number or complete a complicated math problem or win a trophy of my own. And having some self-worth shouldn't need to depend on proof that you have excelled in something competitive, but since that void was already there, being a sports manager couldn't make up for it. 

It did help me get through, which is probably the only fair expectation for a school-based activity.

Yes, parents, you really do have more influence on your children than their friends. Remember that.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/04/object-subject.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/volunteering-as-crutch-for-socially.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2010/08/club-sandwich.html

Drama relapse

The other nagging thought was confusion about taking drama in 10th grade as well.

I had been so thoroughly done with it. I remembered how angry I felt about it. I don't think I said angry things to anyone -- I kept it pretty internal -- but the feelings were strong. Why did I go back?

What came back was actually several memories. 

Okay, at Five Oaks I was in a group of six girls. Ericka moved after ninth grade, but everyone else was in that class that I took. 

I think I missed my friends.

I remember so many details from different sketches they did. We had one where we had to go over the same character at different life stages; I remember exactly what Karen, Nicki, and Danielle did. There was one where you had to be the multiple people in the same scene; I remember Ann's. 

There was one with different people with the same dialogue, so the difference is only the delivery, and one where you had to invoke the five senses. I remember mine and I didn't like them.

It was really pretty good stuff, and it was again possible to learn a lot, but I never quite felt right in it. I wanted romance and drama and to get some of this pain out and resolved. 

The reality is that I was much better at comedy. I understood it better and could come up with better material. But I wanted drama, and drama didn't work for me because it heightened everything that was glaring about what I believed was wrong with me.

Everyone else was doing it. Everyone in my junior high group but one, and from my grade school group a little too. Most of the new friends I made did at least one play, so I met them through old friends.

I have another memory of the class that doesn't make any sense.

We did at least two things that did not require creating original material. One was recitation from Cats, specifically "The Naming of Cats". I think I still have that mostly memorized, along with the prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

We also did some small group pieces. They were mostly dialogues but there may have been some trios. 

I did John Guare's The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, which was pretty cool because I recognized it from some people on the speech team who had done it for a Duo Interp piece. 

The part that doesn't make sense is that I was paired with a guy. 

He may have been the only guy in the class. If there were others, there weren't many. He had fantastic hair. He was friends with at least one other girl in the class. I don't know how or why we ended up together. 

It's a romantic piece. It's also absurdist and ends with his wife killing us both with her shotgun, but nonetheless, there is attraction and connection. One transition involves a kiss, though we cut away before our lips actually met, which I think was the right decision.

Regardless, taking drama again gave me what I thought I wanted, and it was not enough. There I was, the object of affection, and it did not improve my self-esteem or make me think I was one white less repulsive.

It was lonely not having this thing to do with my friends, but this thing was no longer for me, at least not without a lot of therapy first.

What I really needed was something that fit my dysfunction and distracted me.

Well, "needed" night not be exactly the right word for that, but that's what I found and that's what I did.

No more drama!

It took me a long time to figure out why I quit drama so angrily. I knew my stated reasons, and they at least approached the real issue, but they were missing the deeper point.

I should go back to my first time on stage: Fiddler on the Roof when I was in 5th grade. I was a villager with a one-line solo on "Anatevka". I auditioned for Hodel.

Before auditions, we watched the movie in music, but it took several days. After the first day I wanted to be Tzeitel, but then after the second day I definitely wanted to be Hodel, and kind of Chava after the third day, but still mainly Hodel. The bookish aspects of Chava's personality felt familiar, but Hodel was spunkier, and she got to dance with Starsky.

I was worried about nailing her solo, but we didn't even include it in our play. I got "Villager". 

For unnamed characters, there were only three speaking parts. It probably was pretty good getting that, but I didn't really think of it at the time.

I very much wanted to be the ingenue with the love interest. I've always wanted romance. Part of the draw of acting for me was the chance to play at romance, not that school plays really play that up in the lower grades.

I have also always been drawn to entertaining other people, so when I write or do comedy or things like that, it gets there, but there was not the strong romantic association.

In junior high, before my split, I played the Three of Spades in Alice in Wonderland. It was not a great role; another case of slightly more to do than the chorus. I had been okay with that, but one day I just got fed up with it. 

That day happened somewhere not long after one afternoon of mockery and harassment that told me that I was romantically a joke and always would be. Really it was probably only 45 minutes for lunch, and a minute or so behind the school. It just felt longer.

In my head, I left drama because I was never going to get a good part, which meant a lead part, because I was not cute and I couldn't sing. 

That was not fair. I mean, I may not have been a great actress, but people got to try a lot of different things, and roles went to all kinds of people. I saw that happen. I also now see actors putting a lot of thought and nuance into small parts and it makes a difference. 

My reasons for leaving felt very diva-ish and was a little embarrassing, in retrospect.

Also, if I believed not being able to sing was a problem, starting a band where I was going to be the singer was foolish and that was my next move. (Ability to play instruments ended up being more of an issue.) Of course, lead parts in musicals were generally soprano, and I was not that, but there were things I could have done.

Later I told myself that the real issue was that drama would not have kept me busy enough, which again sounded reasonable, but was not really it.

I think I understand it now, and that is because of two nagging thoughts that I remembered for a long time before I could derive any meaning from them.

One was learning improvisation in class. I was a trucker hitting on a waitress (played by Will, so gender reversal). The teacher kept switching people in and out, so the hitting on was started before I was the trucker, but Will was turning down the come-on. I needed to move on, but I couldn't. I could not take another rejection, even though I was not supposed to be me in that moment. 

Of course it wasn't rejection that had gotten me there; it was pretended acceptance, but it messed me up, and I did not have any playfulness or ability to let go of ego, or any of the things that I needed to enjoy drama any more. 

I dropped Drama Club and joined the yearbook staff, and I dropped Drama class from my schedule and took Beginning Guitar. I couldn't accurately assess myself there either.

The way I understand it now is that losing my hopes of future romance was bad enough, but not even getting the chance to emulate it, with reminders of why I was not good enough to emulate or have it... it just hurt too much.  I had all of this undirected anger and needed a place to bury it, but drama would not work for that. I was spinning for a while.

It was not fair. Our drama teacher and director Mr. Smith was a really good teacher, and I learned a lot from him. Even if it could have been appropriate for him to diagnose my shattered self-image and fix it, I do not think it would have been possible.

That's because of the other nagging memory. That's next.