Sunday Morning Memory Lane
I've eaten two chocolate frosted donuts (Entenmann's, but of course) and am sipping my coffee. It might as well be 1993. I'm also watching the MTV show Made, and I have to say, I'm sorta into it. The first one was about a girly-girl who wanted to be a Rugby player, and the second one I am watching is about a Emo girl who wants to be a cheerleader. It's interesting to note that both episodes seem to have to do with girls either rejecting or embracing gender expectations, but there it is.
I think that my "adult" friends here in LA have probably noticed that I am still very close with many people from my high school life. It's true, I am. There is no use denying it. It wasn't so endemic in New York, in fact it was just the opposite, I sort of just hung out with my college friends and that was it. But college friends are not the same as high school friends, because high school friends are the friends that are around when you go through the major transofrmations of your life. I have to admit, I've always wondered what kind of person I would have been if I had stuck it out on the football team. I mean, in the anti-universe, I did well enough to play all four years of high school and had lots of friends and self confidence etc. I think that was the thing about the Emo girl that hit me the most, her looking for "self-confidence."
Not that I have an issue with self-confidence or anything. Of course, if I had a tough-but-loving gay black man (scorchingly gay) teaching me how to play football like this girl has her teaching her how to cheer, things might have gone differently. What's kind of frightening is the scremingly gay black man wants the little white girl to "dress like a cheerleader." So I think it goes to show, that no matter that you should in fact indentify with the little emo girl's need to be different, a brain washed black man will stamp it out and make the Emo girl wear pink and aqua until gender expectations are met. I mean, Doug James, my freshman football couch, was a big, mean, annoyingly erudite scholar-athelete who had no room for any 14 year old giving less that 100 percent etc. I guess I always choose to forget I was one of the last to drop, but there it is. When you look back - in regret - you never think comparitively, i.e. I didn't fail as early as some, right? Then there isn't as much to regret.
I imagine that a lot of this stuff comes up because of the work Betty Ann and I have been working on. That's part of it, but then there is just the simple truth that some of these things just never go away. I mean, who was your worst childhood/adolescent nemesis? Do you still think about that person? If you saw that person on the street, would you say hello, or would you walk on by, hoping they wouldn't recognize you? Of course, if we've achieved "self-confidence," you'd be able to say hi and even engage in conversation.
I guess it's odd though. No matter what happens, I always get the girl who has to be true to herself and play Rugby, than the girl who wants to be a cheerleader so people will like her. Even though her name is Morgan Ward. Not kidding. Creepy, right?
I think that my "adult" friends here in LA have probably noticed that I am still very close with many people from my high school life. It's true, I am. There is no use denying it. It wasn't so endemic in New York, in fact it was just the opposite, I sort of just hung out with my college friends and that was it. But college friends are not the same as high school friends, because high school friends are the friends that are around when you go through the major transofrmations of your life. I have to admit, I've always wondered what kind of person I would have been if I had stuck it out on the football team. I mean, in the anti-universe, I did well enough to play all four years of high school and had lots of friends and self confidence etc. I think that was the thing about the Emo girl that hit me the most, her looking for "self-confidence."
Not that I have an issue with self-confidence or anything. Of course, if I had a tough-but-loving gay black man (scorchingly gay) teaching me how to play football like this girl has her teaching her how to cheer, things might have gone differently. What's kind of frightening is the scremingly gay black man wants the little white girl to "dress like a cheerleader." So I think it goes to show, that no matter that you should in fact indentify with the little emo girl's need to be different, a brain washed black man will stamp it out and make the Emo girl wear pink and aqua until gender expectations are met. I mean, Doug James, my freshman football couch, was a big, mean, annoyingly erudite scholar-athelete who had no room for any 14 year old giving less that 100 percent etc. I guess I always choose to forget I was one of the last to drop, but there it is. When you look back - in regret - you never think comparitively, i.e. I didn't fail as early as some, right? Then there isn't as much to regret.
I imagine that a lot of this stuff comes up because of the work Betty Ann and I have been working on. That's part of it, but then there is just the simple truth that some of these things just never go away. I mean, who was your worst childhood/adolescent nemesis? Do you still think about that person? If you saw that person on the street, would you say hello, or would you walk on by, hoping they wouldn't recognize you? Of course, if we've achieved "self-confidence," you'd be able to say hi and even engage in conversation.
I guess it's odd though. No matter what happens, I always get the girl who has to be true to herself and play Rugby, than the girl who wants to be a cheerleader so people will like her. Even though her name is Morgan Ward. Not kidding. Creepy, right?
posted by tony m. at 10:13 AM
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