I'm 52 (for heaven's sake) and I am discovering graphic novels (for heaven's sake!). I always loved comics. Something my maternal grandfather was keenly aware of and for the dollar he gave me I could by ten, count'em, ten nicely sized DC or Marvel comic. (Yes, I had the original Spiderman which my mother threw out!)
So here I am following and reading and even caring about an online comic, Megatokyo. I mean talk about misplaced generation jumping. I don't like the cutesy faux Japanese cartooning yet I like this one. I like the characters. I like the in an out of reality jumps. I even am learning l33t script/talk. Part of the attraction is the blog type rambling of the artist/creator at the end of each episode. Shames me for all I gave up in my aborted art career. I coulda been a contenda.
Would I like other Manga type novels? I don't think so. Even though I am obscenely following the animated web-TV feed for Love Hina (for heaven's sake!)
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Sunday, July 18, 2004
Pain and my great big useless mouth
Too much too little too late.
I've come to know a small number of people with abuse in their childhood. I mean serious violence in their childhood and emotional neglect. I know them as coping adults and I want say that their commonality is a fierce determination to say their mind and a need to be right, also a strong sense of injustice. I find such friends to be powerful allies but be prepared to defend yourself if you tell them they are wrong about anything! Be prepared to dig your feet in and pull like an ox.
I could have saved my friend a lot of pain. I should have continued to open my mouth and been more insistent. But you see I am always ready change and re-evaluate my opinion because I doubt in the face of unreasonable certainty. My friend is always ready to change and re-evaluate the evidence in the favor of unreasonable certainty. We are quite a pair.
I've come to know a small number of people with abuse in their childhood. I mean serious violence in their childhood and emotional neglect. I know them as coping adults and I want say that their commonality is a fierce determination to say their mind and a need to be right, also a strong sense of injustice. I find such friends to be powerful allies but be prepared to defend yourself if you tell them they are wrong about anything! Be prepared to dig your feet in and pull like an ox.
I could have saved my friend a lot of pain. I should have continued to open my mouth and been more insistent. But you see I am always ready change and re-evaluate my opinion because I doubt in the face of unreasonable certainty. My friend is always ready to change and re-evaluate the evidence in the favor of unreasonable certainty. We are quite a pair.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Family
What can you say about 80 something parents that plan your retirement?
My case: I am 52 years old this October, admittedly a life time under-achiever, who started childhood with a golden talented promise. I grew up in a household my friends envied. My educator parents provided a home rich with musical instruments, books, pets, art and art supplies, and talk (I can't say discussion since our position was to listen to our father expound.) They provided rich experiences (family camping, folkdance, museums, and much more.) We were easy, non-rebellious, and isolated children. My parents were never strict, never demanding, quite permissive although we rarely pushed boundaries. We were compliant and very addicted to reading, television, and of course food.
Imagine my surprise when at my first hint of self assertion, namely the desire to take a year off after high school and work at a JOB, my father freaked and ranted how I would get stuck in a $ 2.00/hr job for the rest of my life, how I would never go to college, and that I should set up a basement studio and write children's books, but that I must register part-time at least in the local college.
The reader of this ramble will at this point be saying, "So what. You're parents didn't make you work and contribute to your keep. You had it soft, nothing to do but go to school." Such a reader would have missed the point. I wanted real experience, adult experience. That was the real problem my father had with my plans. I wanted to be the adult my high school diploma promised I could be. The shock was, Didn't he know me? I wasn't avoiding college for small money. I wanted to find my own reason for going, set my own course and develop it. Going to college was never in doubt. Really, I didn't know my father. He was used to being in control. It is just that I never knew that he was. I am still learning about him now.
I began this by referring to my retirement and my father's plans for it. As I said, I am 52. I am a special education high school teacher. I am a single mother supporting a 18 year old son in a New York City apartment. My father recently proposed that when I retire I come and live with my mentally disabled sister in Maine, in the house that they bought so that my sister would always have a home and any of her four children and any great-grands that might need a place to live when in need. Really they are afraid that her dead beat ex-husband will move back in on her when he runs out of girlfriends and money and my sister will not have the guts to say no. But my sister has three capable daughters. Whereas I have no real authority in that family. My nephew shows every sign of becoming a clone of his red-neck, white trash father. I would have to assert authority in a daily fight over him. Some retirement.
More to the point, Do I look like a spinster old maid daughter to them? Again, my sister has three capable if selfish daughters. And I have a capable son whose company I enjoy. Last year, my father suggested that when I retire I live with my bachelor brother in the house that they deeded to him (another family house just in case) and be his old age companion. I must have a sign on my head: "Incapable Woman with no life". At least in their eyes.
My case: I am 52 years old this October, admittedly a life time under-achiever, who started childhood with a golden talented promise. I grew up in a household my friends envied. My educator parents provided a home rich with musical instruments, books, pets, art and art supplies, and talk (I can't say discussion since our position was to listen to our father expound.) They provided rich experiences (family camping, folkdance, museums, and much more.) We were easy, non-rebellious, and isolated children. My parents were never strict, never demanding, quite permissive although we rarely pushed boundaries. We were compliant and very addicted to reading, television, and of course food.
Imagine my surprise when at my first hint of self assertion, namely the desire to take a year off after high school and work at a JOB, my father freaked and ranted how I would get stuck in a $ 2.00/hr job for the rest of my life, how I would never go to college, and that I should set up a basement studio and write children's books, but that I must register part-time at least in the local college.
The reader of this ramble will at this point be saying, "So what. You're parents didn't make you work and contribute to your keep. You had it soft, nothing to do but go to school." Such a reader would have missed the point. I wanted real experience, adult experience. That was the real problem my father had with my plans. I wanted to be the adult my high school diploma promised I could be. The shock was, Didn't he know me? I wasn't avoiding college for small money. I wanted to find my own reason for going, set my own course and develop it. Going to college was never in doubt. Really, I didn't know my father. He was used to being in control. It is just that I never knew that he was. I am still learning about him now.
I began this by referring to my retirement and my father's plans for it. As I said, I am 52. I am a special education high school teacher. I am a single mother supporting a 18 year old son in a New York City apartment. My father recently proposed that when I retire I come and live with my mentally disabled sister in Maine, in the house that they bought so that my sister would always have a home and any of her four children and any great-grands that might need a place to live when in need. Really they are afraid that her dead beat ex-husband will move back in on her when he runs out of girlfriends and money and my sister will not have the guts to say no. But my sister has three capable daughters. Whereas I have no real authority in that family. My nephew shows every sign of becoming a clone of his red-neck, white trash father. I would have to assert authority in a daily fight over him. Some retirement.
More to the point, Do I look like a spinster old maid daughter to them? Again, my sister has three capable if selfish daughters. And I have a capable son whose company I enjoy. Last year, my father suggested that when I retire I live with my bachelor brother in the house that they deeded to him (another family house just in case) and be his old age companion. I must have a sign on my head: "Incapable Woman with no life". At least in their eyes.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
inwood ramblings
Why did I create this?
I am in the woods in more ways than one.
why is this better than a journal?
I lose them, discontinue them, restart them more times than I can number. The most telling ones I threw away, to my grief. They were me in the woods at thirteen to twenty-something and I let the wrong person read them. Foolish. They fill a landfill somewhere. So better to make this public from the beginning.
The ones I restarted?
Pretentious rantings. Self-conscious histories. Like I am that important.
Why?
I talk to myself really loud.
I am in the woods in more ways than one.
why is this better than a journal?
I lose them, discontinue them, restart them more times than I can number. The most telling ones I threw away, to my grief. They were me in the woods at thirteen to twenty-something and I let the wrong person read them. Foolish. They fill a landfill somewhere. So better to make this public from the beginning.
The ones I restarted?
Pretentious rantings. Self-conscious histories. Like I am that important.
Why?
I talk to myself really loud.
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