Days 16 & 17 - Ups & Downs
16. 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.