Days 16 & 17 - Ups & Downs
Feb. 1st, 2008 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic16. College
The summer after L. and I got together, we were hanging out at another mutual friend's house, R., along with most of the regular crew of guys and I think R.'s new girlfriend. R.'s mother had a friend over, and they were watching us as we ate and debated in the dining room. I was being fairly quiet that day; R. & company were very opinionated consumers and reviewers of indie music and movies -- a few of them write for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone now -- and I found it more comfortable to listen than participate when they got going, while L. mostly inserted biting bits of commentary and insults. Apparently -- L. told me this afterwards -- watching this, the friend said to R.'s mother that L. could do much better than me.
(I was quite surprised and offended, although after a while it became sort of funny; my friends and even a few teachers were always wondering what I saw in him. We each saw quite a lot. That was part of why we fit.)
17. Elementary School/Middle School
Fifth or sixth grade, our enrichment program did a unit on Voyage of the Mimi, which I only remember in pieces. At the end, we took a field trip to ... somewhere on Long Island, I don't even recall, but wherever it was had some big wooden boats we explored, and a guy showed us how to wear a wetsuit and SCUBA gear, and on land in a hut there was some kind of demonstration of how to quickly and properly tie up rope on a fixture, maybe for when you're hauling in a ship. The demo turned into an activity/contest, where kids on the trip were chosen two at a time and challenged to tie the rope as we'd been shown as fast as we could on a pair of the fixtures. I volunteered or was chosen (I suspect the second), and to my surprise I turned out to be really good at it, and beat whoever the other kid was. I remember the onlookers being surprised and laughing and maybe cheering me on, watching this little girl whipping the rope around the ties and winning. I remember it being like a dream, where you don't remember learning what you need to know and you're suddenly being put to the test, except instead of panicking and failing, I did it as if it were an ingrained habit. A crew was there from the LI news station and filmed it, so my family watched the news that night to see if I made it onto TV.
The summer after L. and I got together, we were hanging out at another mutual friend's house, R., along with most of the regular crew of guys and I think R.'s new girlfriend. R.'s mother had a friend over, and they were watching us as we ate and debated in the dining room. I was being fairly quiet that day; R. & company were very opinionated consumers and reviewers of indie music and movies -- a few of them write for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone now -- and I found it more comfortable to listen than participate when they got going, while L. mostly inserted biting bits of commentary and insults. Apparently -- L. told me this afterwards -- watching this, the friend said to R.'s mother that L. could do much better than me.
(I was quite surprised and offended, although after a while it became sort of funny; my friends and even a few teachers were always wondering what I saw in him. We each saw quite a lot. That was part of why we fit.)
17. Elementary School/Middle School
Fifth or sixth grade, our enrichment program did a unit on Voyage of the Mimi, which I only remember in pieces. At the end, we took a field trip to ... somewhere on Long Island, I don't even recall, but wherever it was had some big wooden boats we explored, and a guy showed us how to wear a wetsuit and SCUBA gear, and on land in a hut there was some kind of demonstration of how to quickly and properly tie up rope on a fixture, maybe for when you're hauling in a ship. The demo turned into an activity/contest, where kids on the trip were chosen two at a time and challenged to tie the rope as we'd been shown as fast as we could on a pair of the fixtures. I volunteered or was chosen (I suspect the second), and to my surprise I turned out to be really good at it, and beat whoever the other kid was. I remember the onlookers being surprised and laughing and maybe cheering me on, watching this little girl whipping the rope around the ties and winning. I remember it being like a dream, where you don't remember learning what you need to know and you're suddenly being put to the test, except instead of panicking and failing, I did it as if it were an ingrained habit. A crew was there from the LI news station and filmed it, so my family watched the news that night to see if I made it onto TV.
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Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 07:06 pm (UTC)*Cuddy-smack!* What an incredibly rude thing to say!
I have never been to Long Island, but I imagine everyone who lives there dresses in whites like in The Great Gatsby, drinks cocktails, and golfs. Simultaneously.
Well, *did* you make it onto the news?
no subject
Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 07:14 pm (UTC)And the people you're picturing live mostly in the wealthiest communities along the north shore and out east in the Hamptons where the movie stars holiday. The majority of the rest are just loud and obnoxious. :) This is why I don't go outside if I can help it.
no subject
Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 07:24 pm (UTC)Why do they go there in particular? I am sure it is beautiful on Long Island; it is just for R & R?
If you don't go outside, how will you see the movie stars?!?!
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Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 08:05 pm (UTC)You know, I don't know how the Hamptons became a Destination, other than that wealthy people from the city used to take weekends out in "the country," back when it was a good day's drive out there (now it's more like 2-3 hours). Best history of the area (cum tourism pitch) I could find with five minutes' searching (Wikipedia failed me!) was this: http://www.easthampton.com/history/index.html
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Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 07:39 pm (UTC)I don't recall exactly what the conversation was about, other than it was obviously political and/or foreign affairs oriented, but I made a pithy remark that really impressed everyone at the table. Their reaction made me very uncomfortable, however, because after that one remark they all expected me to make profound and witty comments in as few words as possible, and sort of made a game out of it. But the original remark had been a fluke, and I felt really put on the spot and unable to live up to their expectations.
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 12:46 am (UTC)Aaaah, how stressful. I was going to ask whether you were mentally exaggerating their expectations, but then you said they made a game out of it. I repeat: aaaah! Do you think they realized the moral they'd just taught you was not to be witty or incisive or else you'd be pressured into it forevermore?
How's the weather up there? It's been raining (surprise!) all day, and went from steady drizzle to windy downpour a few hours ago.
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Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 03:05 am (UTC)The weather has been mostly sleet, rain, and wind. I'll be very happy if it stays that way, too! I'm tired of shoveling snow.
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Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 1st, 2008 09:30 pm (UTC)I've been to a ridiculous number of colleges and never fit in anywhere: when I was younger I was far too naive (and the film students were seriously pretentious) and when I was older I was the only one married, and then I was the only one married and with a kid. :-) The funny thing is that I used to be very, very under-educated in comparison to my peer group (based on number of movies seen) and now I've swung the other way and nobody's seen the movies I have. <3 <3 But I try not to be a jerk about it. (Although my girlfriend gave me a Seattle International Film Festival membership for our anniversary, and she said that my peculiar taste in films is one of the things she loves about me. I guess it all works out. It's just peculiar.)
Elementary/Middle School:
When I was in 8th grade I was in a rocket competition: the idea was that we had to pack a raw egg in such a way that it was both light and durable, send it up in a model rocket and then have it come down unbroken. We called our rocket The Dying Dutchman, because we could never get the fins to stay on reliably.
On the day of the competition it was /seriously/ windy, and we ended up winning (against university level physics students, no less) because we got lucky: our launch was in the one window of time all day that didn't have any wind, so it came up and down again no problem. (the fins even stayed on). Everyone else's just kind of went up so far, the wind caught the fins and it crashed.
It was super fun. In the early stages we got to drop eggs from the top of the stairwell. I think the space blanket was what provided the optimal amount of padding vs. lightness.
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 01:04 am (UTC)And as for your college tale, I think many of us who congregate in fandom are sadly used to not fitting in anywhere, for whatever reasons. You definitely have my sympathy! That's cool that you've ended up surpassing your peers, though. What sort of peculiar films do you like? Or is it more a peculiar combination?
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Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2008 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:30 am (UTC)My favorite one of the ones I listed was probably The Taste of Tea: largely because of the little girl character, who is followed around by a giant version of herself that no one else can see. It's a really cute and yet utterly surreal family film.
Sunflower was fabulous - I hope you enjoy it. <3
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Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:38 am (UTC)There's a fantastic theater in Brookline, MA I used to love going to when I was at school, the Coolidge Corner Theater (http://www.coolidge.org/about), also a restored theater with plush seats, curtains and a high Art Deco painted ceiling. When 2001: A Space Odyssey was re-released, they kept in the intermission, with the curtain closing over the screen and everything. ♥
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Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 4th, 2008 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 04:40 am (UTC)I was in kindergarten, I think, or maybe I was a little older, but not by much. I needed to pee so I headed for the bathroom where I found my mother cleaning the toilet. I crinkled my nose and declared I never wanted to clean a toilet in my whole life. My mother told me I'd have to one day and I insisted I never would. "Well, it's not going to clean itself and I'm not going to come to your house to clean for you," she told me. I said she wouldn't have to because I'd be rich and famous and I'd hire someone to clean my toilets and hers, so she wouldn't have to either! She sneered and me and said, "You'll never be able to afford a maid."
17 - Hidden talents
I've never been very big on video games. Most of the stuff I play is in the puzzle/strategy category. Every once in a while I venture into the realm of platform games but that's really about it. My nephews, on the other hand, are huuuuuuge fans of gaming. They love racing games, fighting games, first-person shooters... Any kind of action game, really. And I love watching them, but I'm just not much of a player. I am, however, a sucker for my nephews so when the oldest one (12 at the time, which made me 14) begged and begged me to play against him, eventually I agreed. He picked Tekken 3 which is a fighting game that he'd just gotten a few weeks earlier. I'd never even watched him play it. Everyone was prepared for me to have my ass handed to me.
Yeah, no. I totally whipped his butt. I didn't even need time to get used to which buttons produced which moves. I just got in there and K.O.'d him like it's what I was born to do. XD Honestly? You really don't need to have any kind of gaming talent or knowledge to kick ass at fighting games. All you need to do is button-smash and have better rhythm than the person you're playing against. Trufax, folks, you heard it here first.
no subject
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2008 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2008 06:35 pm (UTC)Anyway. I wonder what would happen if we played a fighting game against each other. I bet it'd be LOLarious and tons of fun to watch. XD
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Date: Feb. 5th, 2008 03:22 am (UTC): ) I think you're right that it'd be LOLarious. Maybe we'd tie...
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Date: Feb. 5th, 2008 03:22 am (UTC): ) I think you're right that it'd be LOLarious. Maybe we'd tie...
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Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 05:26 am (UTC)HM. . . when I was younger, we went to the beach around CT area- might have been Roade Island. Anyhow, It was the summer that the Special Olympics was held there, and my dad and I walked out in the line to help look for a drowned athlete. After a while my dad got tired, so we came back into shore. There was a news crew guy who didn't want to go out any further there, and we got interviewed for the news. I was wearing this bright pink bathing suit, I think. Or maybe it was the Rainbow leopard print one? It was the Early 90's so it was perfectly acceptable for a little girl to wear hideous clothing.
OurloveissoWTF
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 06:06 am (UTC)Onlookers judging girlfriend quality
First of all, I don't date; I glomp. This explains why, when my boyfriend T. was out of town, I was living in his house, sitting on his couch with his little sister, watching Firefly. Having recently been introduced to Firefly (by said boyfriend; I definitely owe him for that), I was in an evangelical mood, so I hijacked my friend J. for 24 hours straight to show him all of Firefly. While we were watching, some of T.'s relatives dropped by, and I was of course introduced to them as T.'s
glompergirlfriend. I was told afterwards that after observing J. and I in the living room together, they asked, very shocked, if T. was okay with this. Apparently J. and I were having a torrid affair. In T.'s house ...on the couch next to his little sister? I'm a bit baffled by this conclusion. Nevertheless, that was not to be the end of Our Great Love. About a year later, while walking down the street together we were taken for newlyweds. Twice, I think. SO confused. I can't imagine that we at all give off a couple-y vibe, but just to be on the safe side, I insisted he make an honest woman of me. He bought me a 25 cent ring from one of those vending machines, and told me that just as some bought their fiancees diamonds to represent the depth and lastingness of their feelings, this loop of tin topped with a pink pineapple represented the depth and lastingness of his. I hope this assuages T.'s relatives' delicate sensibilities.