[Miscellany]

You know, I missed my 5th year blogiversay a couple of weeks ago. The 26th March 2001 was when I started at dd and in various places since. Some of you have been on this journey with me for a very, very long time - not sure if I've developed as a person at all. Boy am I a dork.

Here are a few morsels from that first entry

I've had a horrible time trying to set this up.
where are the simple idiot proof instructions?
where are the preview buttons?
oh well.
pink and black (if it worked)
how very..uh...me.

..
In 1988 Doogie Howser (child genuis doctor person) sat down at the end of every day and wrote a concise and simplistic summation of his life, while his much cooler best friend was busy pulling chicks.
(why the hell did Vinnie hang out with Doogie anyway?)
fast forward 13 years later
In 2001, I sit at my computer and write a simplistic (not so concise) summation of my life while my friends are busy having lives.
am I the only person who sees something wrong with this?

yep, dork.

I just got my first search engine query for painty shitting. Yes, you read right; painty. They might have meant panty shitting but somehow I like painty better. It's kinkier. In any case, I couldn't feel prouder than if my future firstborn (aka: sperm doner baby) had learnt to read his first word.

So, I'm sitting here eating chocolate and deciding what to do with my remnants of my Easter, and musing about my funny old day. What did you do? I spent Easter with my family. I remember the good old days (0-10 years old) when my uncle would swing in on Easter shouting "Merry Christmas" (god love him) and then we'd collect big on the chocolates and spend the rest of the day fighting over who was the detective in our millionth game of Murder in the Dark and then spending the rest of the night with tongue hanging out of mouth and licking the floor or something. Fast forward to 28 years old and the chocolate is gone and half way through dinner someone clears their throat and you know what's coming. Oh yes.

You find good boy, get married, and I make your dress!. Oh Lord - I thought you already died for my sins, so why am I still being punished? The floodgates open and soon everyone starts in. Don't wait too long or I won't be able to see the needle to sew your dress (my aunt is a talented dress maker). By this stage all the olds have joined in on the act and all I can do is just fire back lame answers "I might get married to my fish" "I'm thinking of tricking someone into it" "pass the bowl of please stop torturing me" etc. Am I the only one who has to go through this? These people are like vultures.

It's not like I come from a family of people who married and had babies young either. My mother had me at 36, and my bro 2 years later. My aunt had my cousin at 40 and her sister 3 years later. My other cousin MT is having a baby at 40 herself. So, really - I don't see the big deal in pressuring me about it when many people are having babies in their mid to late 30s these days, but I suppose they *do* need something to talk about at these get togethers. ugh.

Luckily we moved onto other topics; AuthorCousin has just brought out his first picture book and we were all pretty excited about that. FashionCousin is going Os for a while. ArtistCousin is not a nun (woo!). Then we got onto 'back in the day' type conversations. Now, a while ago I confronted my mother with some memories I had of being punished by being locked in my room with the curtains closed and the chord tied up so that I couldn't open them again. That was my time out. I remember trying to reach the chord by climbing on the desk, but still couldn't and then trying to hold the drapes open with my hands but getting tired and then finally finding a way to keep the curtains open by using bits of random furniture to hold the drapes back. I wasn't scared or disturbed by the situation but as is always the case with me: I may accept punishment dutifully on the surface but don't think I won't try to subvert the situation until it is neatly pointed to my advantage. I also planned by most devious revenge fantasies in this "time out".

I don't think it affected me adversely in any way - well, okay I am a total spaz, but that may have happened regardless of punishment. Anyway, when I confronted my mother with this story of being locked away she flatly denied it and told me that I was being silly and that I had an overactive imagination. Now, I have always had an overactive imagination - this I don't deny. Some of the things I remember I am still trying to decide if they are true or not. Some of those things in my head are really bad but don't necessarily have to do with my parents. I don't know whether to believe myself or not sometimes. But this punishment, I was sure happened.

My Aunt happened to bring this punishment up tonight. She confirmed it by saying that at one particular instance when ArtistCousin was 2 (I would have been 3) and AC was staying at our house. She went home a few days later totally freaked out by me being locked away for a period of time because she was afraid of the punishment happening to her (which, of course it didn't). ArtistCousin was already afraid of the dark, you see. Aunt saying this brought that memory back. I remember very well, ArtistCousin staying over and banging on the door when I was in time out, because she wanted me to come out. Then when we went to sleep ArtistCousin was afraid of the dark and had to go sleep with my Nonna. I was sad at the time because I thought I'd done something wrong to make her scared.

Anyway, the whole point is that one of my memories has been confirmed and now that puts everything else up for scrutiny too..

posted by M at 10:43 pm 7 comments