Return of Memoryfest: Day 8/31

[bironic]

(Thought I'd jazz it up with some of these icons. Retroactively.)


8. Middle School

In the car on vacation in Toronto, my mother glanced at the cover of a Deep Space Nine paperback I was reading, saw the drawing of Dr. Bashir and said, "He has a bulbous nose." Anytime the word "bulbous" comes up, that's what I think of.

WTF

Comments

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

when we moved to Utica, We left behind a lot of my brother's books. A couple years ago, I went back and dug through the mess left behind and found old copies of Tarzan's adventures, Comic books, and choose-your-own-adventure novels. I loaded them up into a box and took them to the Utica house. I think I still have them in my room at my parent's house today.

~SNL~

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Nice. It's going to be a real trip down memory lane one day when I open up some boxes in the basement where my parents (and, later, I) stored books from my childhood.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

When I was eleven I first read "Lord of the Rings". Some time not too long after (I re-read it numerous times very fast) I was telling my mother about it. I was completely enraptured and told her that Tolkien had created this complete world - perfect detail. And she tore into me for wanting to live in another world. That wasn't at all what I meant, but she probably did sense that I didn't want to be in this one - and did my best to live in book worlds all the time.

(And I just caught up, so if you have a multitude of replies, that's just my memories *S*)

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

I sympathize. I take a lot of crap from my mother for getting so much enjoyment out of sometimes retreating into the worlds of books and movies. Stupid parents. :(

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathy in return. To my mother's defence, she got a lot better at accepting my imaginative way of looking at things. She did have a second big "blow-up" when I got really into roleplaying games. I think that one made her worry a lot. But I guess that the fact that I grew up and became relatively responsible and aware of my surroundings made her stop worrying - after a while ;-)

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, roleplaying. I got into online roleplaying when I was about nine years old. Over the years my mother went to some crazy measures to keep me from it. Hiding the computer's power cords, putting all kinds of resrictions on my access, blocking email from usernames that weren't family, etc. Eventually she calmed down and stopped with the Big Brothering my accounts. I started playing again and just didn't mention that's what I was doing.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Well, by the time I got into online stuff (that was in '96) I was 20 and had left home for good two years before, so that never became an issue, thankfully. Or I'd have had to listen to extra stuff about the amount of time I spend on that ;-)
It was my first table-top roleplaying that set that off. I was 15 when I started that.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I'm so glad you've come back. *hug*

I think I remember you telling this story last year, and it led into a group conversation about how to deal with people who aren't used to exercising their imaginations. Looks like the moral this time is that parents can't stop their kids from admiring (or yearning for) a fictional world or from roleplaying, no matter how hard they try. :)

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was afraid I'd told it before. I think it is very firmly at the front of my memory.
But that's a great moral, so I don't mind :-)
(Oh, that's a great icon, btw!)

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

Odd word associations are fun. One weekend in high school I was staying at my friend Ashley's house. We were out in her back yard sitting around a fire with her parents and her little brother, drinking (yes, underage drinking, we're all going to hell) and roasting anything we could find in the fridge/freezer/cabinets and would stay on a stick. I don't even remember how the hell the conversation started but somehow we got onto the subject of how Ashley's dad had recently sold their lawnmower. (The riveting topics of rural life...) Apparently, he wasn't happy about it -- again, I can't recall why. But his wife turned to him, gave him the most mournful look and said very sadly, "Do you feel remorse?" XD We all burst into laughter until we couldn't breathe at the superb overacting on mom's part. And to this day I can't help giggling or at least smiling any time I hear the word 'remorse.' Unfortunately, this is not the sort of word you usually want to smile at...

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ha. No, not the best word to giggle at, but it's a funny story.

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

I started reading when I was three (Pat the Pilot while waiting in the car for my mother to pick up some groceries) and have never really stopped. In fact, my first childhood ambition was to be a reader (admitted after my aunt caught me reading the old newspapers I was supposed to be wrapping glasses in during a move).

A friend gave me a guidebook for Buenos Aires this Christmas and then chided me for reading it in the bar - what did she think I would do with dozens of new pages of text!?

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

hahaha Indeed! Yesterday afternoon my best friend got all the texts for this semester's classes and it was 2 in the morning before she actually started looking them over. I was completely amazed. I was like, "Shit, son, if I were you, I would've been completely ignoring me all night and burying myself in those books instead of chatting!" "But they're my textbooks." XD Yeah, well, I just got a huge order from B&N that mostly consisted of textbooks which I plan to read for pleasure. Books are books and they're meant to be read!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I was definitely one of those people who start reading textbooks before classes begin, because they're new and exciting and contain all sorts of information that you can know.

And add me to the textbooks-for-pleasure club. *points to newest additions of werewolf, fanfic/fandom and Pathology texts*

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

We're such geeks. I love us. XD ♥

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

*points to newest additions of werewolf, fanfic/fandom and Pathology texts*

There are textbooks about werewolves and about fanfic? They both sound interesting. Titles, please? (Along similar lines, have you read Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality? It's a fascinating book.) I'll pass on the pathology book, though: it sounds too much like a book I'd edit for work. (Who knows? I might even have edited it; I've worked on a lot of medical textbooks.)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I... want your job. No, really. I should email you about it one of these days.

There are textbooks about werewolves and about fanfic?

You betcha! I've got a shelf full of fanfic and fandom studies books. Most of them are sociological studies, some interdisciplinary collections of essays, and a few take a literary/textual perspective (my favorite). The two that I am most looking forward to reading are Sheenagh Pugh's The Democratic Genre: Fan fiction in a literary context and Hellekson & Busse's edited collection, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet (both pub. 2006).

There don't seem to be nearly as many books on werewolves as on vampires (which is okay with me *g*). The one I have here was a present from catilinarian. It's called The Complete Book of Werewolves and it's by Leonard R.N. Ashley. So far so mediocre -- would be better if he'd write complete passages instead of breaking his text up into paragraph-long subsections -- but will reserve judgment until the end.

Haven't read the book you mention. Don't know when I'll have time to check it out! So much to read, so very little time.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the titles! I'll have to check them out at Amazon.com (although, as you say, I have no idea when I'd get a chance to actually read them).

I... want your job. No, really. I should email you about it one of these days.

Feel free! (My email address is on my profile page). I'd be happy to hear from you.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Well, really! Words demand to be read. Are you also prone to reading milk and cereal cartons or whatever labeled items are in front of you at meals, even if you've read them before? Or do you always have a book or newspaper with you so the point is moot?

I don't know how old I was when I started reading, but some of my earliest memories are of books. And I haven't stopped either, though lately I've (sadly) been reading more fanfic and less printed material. One of my unofficial New Year's resolutions is to right the balance. (Started this weekend and everything -- Jonathan Lethem's novel As She Climbed Across the Table and part of a text on werewolves in pop culture.)

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to butt in and say how familiar that 'reading something just because it's there' feeling is. I frequently forget to bring something to read, so I end up reading random things in great detail. But textbooks for fun? Er, no. Not my textbooks, anyway :)

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - milk cartons, food wrappers. Placemats in fast food restaurants. In English and in French.

My first job at the theatre company was as an archivist, which I took as a mandate to read every piece of paper in every file I came across (instant institutional memory). That was an awesome four months.

I've gradually been reading more and more online, whether it's personal or work-related. And while it doesn't replace the feel of a book in the hand, it's easier to clean up after a click-through rampage on Wikipedia (though perhaps not as accurately informative) than it was to reshelve half my mother's reference bookcase after one of my childhood fact-finding missions.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Or do you always have a book or newspaper with you so the point is moot?

I pretty much always take a book with me when I have to go anywhere that might involve waiting (doctors' offices, mechanics, etc.). At home, I always read either a book or the paper while eating. If I'm visiting other people, I'll read whatever's there on the table—including cereal boxes and labels.

lately I've (sadly) been reading more fanfic and less printed material. One of my unofficial New Year's resolutions is to right the balance.

Yeah, me too. Except the fanfic is so good that I don't really want to cut back. What we really need is to expand the number of available (i.e., nonworking) hours in the day. Then we can read both!