16 Things

A Facebook thing was going around recently where you were supposed to tell 16 things about yourself. I didn't really feel like doing it, but I figured it was a good excuse to spend time thinking about memories I'd sort of been meaning to write down but couldn't force myself to. Anyhow, here you go, all completely true to the best of my knowledge:

1. I went to pre-school at Elam Love & Learn, which is on Smithbridge Road, basically across the street from Bruster’s, just next door to Megan’s. In the mornings sometimes we would fold a piece of paper into nine squares and write the same letter in each square. Sometimes we’d have time to play, and there was a girl named Alex that I “liked” and usually played with. One time we were playing with wooden blocks and we made a ‘stretcher’ out of them and laid me on it, as if I were hurt, and a kid named Dave asked if he could play too. We thought he was weird because he pretended to be a vampire, and we stuck our tongues out at him, and he cried and got us in trouble. This is my first clear memory.

2. I almost drowned sometime before I was in about third grade. There was an old beach house (condominium) that we had in Avalon on the bay, and there was a bulkhead in the front, and a dock below it that would rise and fall with the tides. You could jump from the bulkhead to the dock line if you wanted to, but sometimes the jump could be eight feet or more. Once, on a cold day, I was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants outside in the evening and I jumped from the bulk to the dock, but I couldn’t stop my momentum, and I feel in the water. I started screaming because I was scared and my clothes were heavy. My dad happened to be on the dock at that moment, and ran over and pulled me out. I went inside and took a warm bath for a while. My sister and her friend Becky checked to make sure I was okay (must have had a swimsuit on). I might have died if my dad hadn’t been outside.

3. The first song that I ever legitimately learned on piano was Do You Hear What I Hear. After my first piano lesson with Mrs. Pino, I went home with my mom and played through the first bit of it over and over and over and over again, and she sat there patiently as I messed up over and over and over and over again. I think I was in fourth grade. If I had kept up that kind of determination, I’d have been the best piano student of all time. Unfortunately, I started being told to play songs I didn’t want to play. I quit on and off until 9th grade. The reason that I started playing piano seriously again was because of the version of “Best Imitation of Myself” on Ben Folds Live, which my sister made me listen to in the car one day for basically no reason at all. Thank god for it.

4. I used to post on the forums at GameFAQs.com a LOT. There was a discussion board called The Forum, mostly for political and “philosophical” discussion, that I frequented. There were a bunch of other regulars – Ryoko, an Asian woman, Chemocles, a nice married dude, ghost sgt, an old cynic with three daughters, propheticfiction, who I think cut up birds, yars, who was hilariously sarcastic at all times, Polemos and Epistemizer, who wrote 2,000 word long posts when everyone else wrote five sentences. I never told my age but everyone knew I was The Young One. It was nice to sort of have a second ‘group of friends’ like that, and that you could always debate with but still like, ‘cuz it’s just the internet. Over time the board got taken over by people we didn’t like, and I tried to make another board for us to post at, but it fell apart too. It was actually a good time in my life, and I would enjoy if I could find something like it again.

5. One time when I was in second grade, I got on the school bus and didn’t realize that I hadn’t brought my backpack. My teacher was Mrs. Hopkins, who was very very nice. Back then, I was really really uptight, and sort of mean. When I got closer to school, I somehow realized I didn’t have my backpack, and I got *incredibly* nervous. I walked into class and tried to contain myself, but before the first bell even rang I felt sick. By the time all the kids were out of the hallway, I had asked Mrs. Hopkins if I could go to the nurse, and she let me – I think I was very pale. I threw up in the hallway before I made it there, I think right in front of the library at Concord Elementary School. Yes, I was so nervous about forgetting my backpack that I threw up. Mrs. Hopkins didn’t even care I forgot it.

6. We used to play football every day during recess in middle school. I can’t remember everyone there, but Greg Davis, Sean Haggerty, John Kernicky, Paul Skulski, and a whole bunch of other kids would play. I was okay, I usually got picked in the front half of the daily draft of teams. I could run forever. I was always the one that brought the football. The last days of 6th grade were kind of confusing and I didn’t know when we’d have recess and when we wouldn’t, but I thought that it ended a certain day, so I didn’t bring my ball the next day. Turns out it was a perfect day, and we had recess. Sean Haggerty got really angry at me, I remember he pushed me while saying, “We’re not gonna play football on the last recess of our young lives.” I sort of knew I screwed up, but it really wasn’t that big a deal. I forget what we did instead.

7. I had a couple online journals before chemicalroad. The first one was actually on livejournal, but I’m not giving the link to that because it’s terrible. I started that one because a girl who liked me asked me to and I did it because I can’t say no sometimes. I only wrote once or twice, then I realized I didn’t like her and she went psycho, tried to make me jealous, and then disappeared. Her name was Brenda. The next one was xanga.com/poulemarchus, which was my screen name before Singing Farewell. That one went for a while, but stopped when I found out my parents were reading it. I hate it when my parents screw up things like that; an entire year of my life in writing disappeared because of it. I eventually started xanga.com/stateownedmedia, but only wrote in it a few times. I still like to go back and read them every now and then. I’m not sure anyone can read the poulemarchus one right now though.

8. My mom found out that one of my legs was longer than the other when I was young and she realized my underwear and pants didn’t fit right on my hips. I had to have a lift put into my left shoe for a long time, like an inch thick in seventh grade. Kids used to call me “spice girl” in school, and kids at soccer camp called me “boots.” It was really annoying and I wanted to punch people and make fun of their acne, or ugly eyes, or terrible haircuts, or crooked teeth, but I didn’t. I got the growth plates in my right knee broken in 8th grade to fix the problem. I told people I had the cast because of a surfing accident, or because my brother beat me up, because I felt like telling a cool story. People believe me but I think most people found out eventually. If I didn’t have this problem I’d be six-foot-one. No one asks me about my shoes anymore, unless they’ve caught on fire recently.

9. When I was young, I really liked the song “Masterpiece.” I forget who it was by. Anyway, I actually liked it because I thought he was saying “I found a *monster* piece in you,” rather than masterpiece in you. I had a weird visual understanding of it in my head, and I just thought it was an incredible concept. I mean, this was like kindergarten.

10. My family had a computer when I was really young, a while before 2nd grade, and we had the internet through a provider called Prodigy. It was really terrible and slow, but I was too young to tell the difference. I found a game somewhere once involving a girl and an adventure through pre-historic times with dinosaurs, and always wanted to play it a second time, but I don’t think I ever found it again. This is my only memory of Prodigy.

11. I got a blanket before I had a memory. It was white and had some sort of design on it, although I’m not sure what. It’s ragged and brown/yellow/white now. I still sleep with it every night. Deal with it.

12. I used to be really obsessed with tractors and trucks, and I was convinced I would drive one for my job when I grew up. I thought people would pay for rides in 18-wheelers. Turns out I was wrong. I used to always make “towns” for tractors that I would take to the beach when I was young. In my old house, we had a living room with pink carpet and a lot of open space, and I would spend hours and hours with little metal tractors “mowing” the carpet, making straight lines with their metal wheels from one wall to another, back and forth. I idolized Scott, our lawn guy.

13. I used to be completely phobic of being alone. It started one day when my brother and neighbor convinced my mom left for good and was never coming back. After that, I would be one room away from my mom and afraid she was gone, and we had this conversation a thousand times: “MOOOM!?!?” “What?!” “…just checking.” Sometimes I got scared and did it at night when I was sleeping, or when we were both sleeping. Sometimes when I woke up in the middle of the night I’d check on them to make sure both of my parents were still there.

14. I have a lot of things wrong with me. When I was born, my tear ducts were messed up and I had to have surgery on them. I was diagnosed with Tourette’s when I was around 12, but I’m pretty sure that was inaccurate, or it went away. One leg was longer than the other. I’m losing my vision. I have an irregular heartbeat, but apparently it’s nothing dangerous. I have pecsis, meaning one set of ribs sticks out unequally against the other.

15. I never really know what my songs are about when I’m writing them. They sort of take on meaning retroactively, and sometimes they just take on extra meanings, and it happens to be a cooler meaning. For instance, when I wrote Singing Farewell, I imagined it as a song to a living friend from a deceased friend. Turns out it’s a way cooler song if you think about it more in the context of a graduation. Those sorts of things happen in almost all my songs. Some might say that’s cheap, but I think it’s cool, almost like I subconsciously have a meaning that I just need a month and a dozen listens to figure out.

16. Last one, about the future this time. I’d love to make a difference in the world, but I have no idea how. It’s so intimidating. Should I spend it working with poor people, maybe in undeveloped nations? Be a teacher? Just be a really good friend to everyone? Be a politician? I don’t know. I sort of realize that even though I’ve surrounded myself with beautiful things and people that I love endlessly, there are a lot of terrible things in the world that would crush your soul if only you could consider them simultaneously. I’d love to be the world’s hero and have everyone be, at the very least, safe and content. Not for the recognition, just because I want people to be safe and happy. But there’s so, so much inertia otherwise.

I might go into more detail on some of these at some point if I feel like it, or if someone asks me to.

Peace out!