Something about me
It's been awhile since I last posted, and that's really been because things have been hectic in real life. It's also been because I looked over the past few entries, and realized that all I was doing was navel-gazing, talking around things, and talking to an audience about issues without really, really communicating. So, as a result of that, I'm going to talk a bit about myself, and actually communicate.
As someone mentioned, I'm less cheerful than I used to be. The main reason for that, currently, is that I'm not where I want to be, geographically speaking. Let's get this out of the way up front, I'm 31 and living with my parents. To me, this is the sign of ultimate failing. Severe, ultimate failing. And, truth be told, since I don't have to worry about rent (although I do pay the electric and phone bills), there have been a few truths that I've had to come to grips with. I'm not as organized as I should be, and I need to develop more initiative. Things like these can be taken care of, but what really saps my spirit is that I'm living in my hometown.
My hometown, for the record, is Mio, Michigan. It is the county seat of Oscoda County, and has a little over 2,000 people in it. It's also dirt poor. From the Wikipedia entry:
"The median income for a household in the CDP was $26,831, and the median income for a family was $31,379. Males had a median income of $29,542 versus $20,927 for females. The per capita income for the community was $13,064. About 13.9% of families and 21.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.3% of those under age 18 and 13.4% of those age 65 or over."
I grew up here, living about a year when I was two or three, then coming back when I was five and basically living here until I left for college. As for how I feel about it...well, to be blunt, I hate it. With a passion. There is nothing good in this town. Absolutely nothing.
The first reason I hate Mio is because of its school system. In 1989, Mio won the Class D State Championship, when I was in the sixth grade. Prior to that, they had one all-star player named Jay Smith, who became such a celebrity while he was in high school that they named a road after him. I will say that when I was in sixth grade, I enjoyed rooting for the Mio varsity basketball team along with the rest of the town, and quite frankly enjoyed when the principal called a half-day when the basketball team went down to East Lansing for the playoffs. Shortly afterwards, I learned exactly how much Mio and the school system loved basketball.
Let me just say that I have never considered myself a great athlete. I like being active, but I've never been that great at basketball. Not being good at basketball in a town that only prizes skill at basketball is, honestly, kind of eviscerating...that's the best way to put it. So what if I was smart? So what if I could draw? I couldn't play basketball, and that was pretty much all that mattered. As an example, my math teacher during junior high was the coach of the varsity basketball team. What this meant was that during basketball season, our class learned nothing. Literally nothing. We would watch, along with the teacher/coach, the basketball games that had gone on during Tuesdays and Thursdays. On nights where there wasn't a game the night before, we watched the pro and college teams playing, so the teacher could devise new strategies. During playoffs, the teacher would watch tapes of the other teams. As I said, I learned nothing. It's also not conducive to learning math if you don't know how to do some homework, and the teacher doesn't want you to interrupt because he is watching the replays.
Of course, other teachers had that attitude. Mostly, they were math teachers. While I won't name my junior high math teacher, as he's since passed away, Mr. Kaufman is still among the living. He taught high-school math, and his lectures were all the same. The first twenty minutes were spent talking about the new concept we were supposed to learn. The other forty minutes were spent chatting with the jocks about their game. In the meantime, I would be struggling to understand the concept, only occasionally getting Mr. Kaufman's attention. In an interesting tangent, Mr. Kaufman was also one of the teachers who let me know that I would not be able to make it at the University of Michigan, because the University of Michigan placed more value on academics than Mio, and boy did I ever have it easy in Mio...according to Mr. Kaufman, I would have to work twenty hours a day to stay afloat at the University of Michigan, and if I did, I might be able to pass. Might.
Of course, the basketball players got special treatment. One vivid memory is a math test, a quarter-final. I was taking that consisted of two pages. I turned in my math test just after one of the starters on the basketball team had turned his in. Except for the name, the entire first page was blank.
On a quarter-final.
And he still got a C in the course.
Granted, when I was on the Quiz Bowl, I don't recall getting that good of a deal. In fact, I recall that I had the screws put to me when I had to miss a math class for a Quiz Bowl match.
What really kind of hurt, though, was that I really didn't have any friends from grades 6 to 12. I had a fair number of good acquaintances, although I learned pretty quickly that I was kept around mostly so the other kids would have an adversary. As in, would you rather exclude someone you liked in, say, hide and seek, or would you rather invite someone you didn't care for anyway so they were the ones who had to find you and your friends?
I remember hating the day before school started, roughly from grades 10 through 12, because I knew it was another year of not being liked and not being talked to, except to be insulted, teased, what-have-you. I remember eating lunch alone, trying to fit in with the guys one grade above me, and never *quite* doing it.
When people usually talked to me in high school, it was usually to criticize or insult me somehow. I was the low man on the social totem pole, the shy, artistic kid with some geeky tendencies, and that...well, that made me a target for so many people it was incredible. Quite a few basketball players took their shots at me, and one of the nastier delinquents lined me up in his sites for a few months until he got expelled (or dropped out, I don't know which). In Mio, the generally accepted way to settle your differences was by spinning the other person around, hitting them, then continuing to hit them until they didn't move or until the teachers restrained you. The Mio rules forbade brawling, even if you were defending yourself, so I tried to follow the rules, and subsequently backed down from damn near every conflict. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have fought back and put a few bullies into intensive care. Following the rules is so not worth it when the result is a loss of self-respect.
I should point out that I wasn't completely and utterly alone. In the last half of my junior year, I was on good terms with the members of the first three "street gangs" in Mio. Yes, street gangs in Mio compared to the Bloods or the Crips are like a toy poodle compared to a rabid polar bear, but we were all outcasts, dammit. And in the last, say, eighth of my senior year, some of the students warmed up to me, God knows why. Still, spend most of your time being mocked, teased, insulted, or the target of whatever prank someone thinks is funny, and when someone wants to be friends, you take their offer very, very cautiously.
One thing that really and truly got to me was that my achievements were usually met with a barely-concealed yawn. My parents liked when I got an A on a test, but the rest of the class hated me for it. When I got an All-A report card, my parents were happy, but it was really no big deal to anyone else. When I was in the school plays, it was also no big deal. When I was in the Quiz Bowl, no big deal. I wanted desperately to be noticed, to have someone other than my parents say I was doing a good job, or that I was alright. And yes, I got recognized at the annual academic rewards, but...well, this is where basketball came in again. By comparison, the academic awards could fill up maybe a quarter of the gymnasium, on a good year. Maybe. The fall and winter sports awards show, on the other hand, filled up the entire gym to capacity, and the kids who got the awards got their names in the paper, had trophies, and had people cheering for them. Yes, I was jealous. Looking back, though, it was more because I wanted to be recognized and of course, wasn't. I don't recall anyone coming to me and saying "Hey, you did a great job in that play!" or anything like that. It's really, pathetically, Charlie Brown-like, I know, but I really did want to be liked, and quite frankly I wasn't.
While we're on the subject, I should mention girls. My first attempt at romance was a cheerleader, who, on the advice of my mom, I was nice to for about a year before I wrote a love letter, and got a two-page hate letter in return. I asked out two other girls after that, and was shot down by both of them, and being near constantly alone during the slow songs at the school dances.
So yeah, to sum it up, my years in the Mio-AuSable school system sucked. I learned just how nasty kids can be firsthand. And quite frankly, it tore my self-esteem and self-confidence to shreds. On some level, I recognize now, it became apparent that whatever I did, I couldn't win. So I kind of gave up for awhile and just went through the motions, smiling and pretend things didn't hurt when they did, not trying to win because, hell, how could I?
I swore to God and everyone that I would never come back here, and it would seem that God has a nasty, nasty sense of humor, especially as I came back having failed hard as an entrepeneur.
I went out and had a drink with some of my classmates two years ago, in one of the local bars. None of them, and I do mean none, had really moved beyond high school. I hate that period of my life with a passion, and to them it had never stopped. The ex-basketball players had a little less esteem than they did when they were still playing, but their names were known around that bar. My classmates talked about how much fun they had in high school, the parties that all the classmates had had, and what formerly popular boys were screwing the formerly popular girls. They were literally living high school all over again.
I think it was at that point I started to actively hate Mio and everyone in it.
I try very hard currently not to be seen or talk to anyone I might know in Mio. The day takes a serious downturn, in my opinion, if I have to talk to a former classmate or the parent of a classmate, or anyone who knows me on a first-name basis in Mio. I despise everyone here who has set their sites so low that they are comfortable living here and reliving their teen years. I hate that people have seen my articles in the local paper and consider me a raging success for having done so. I hate that the twenty and thirtysomethings drink at one particular bar, the fortysomethings and fiftysomethings drink at another bar, and the sixtysomethings and seventysomethings drink in yet another bar. I hate that this is all they aspire to, that their day jobs just give them beer money so they can fuck a former cheerleader. And above all, I hate that they look at themselves and their little town that they keep clean of anyone and anything that isn't white and Christian, and consider themselves superior because they aren't the big city. I will not date anyone within 60 miles of here, because I will not put up with someone whose goals are so low that they settled here.
To be fair, I could deal with Mio when I was down in East Lansing, being my own person. Now that I'm back here, though, I'm confronted with it twenty-four hours a day.
Looking back, I'm not sure whether or not this makes me a horrible person. It is what I am, though, and it's why I am now desperately trying to get out. I've come to the conclusion that a job anywhere, including Darfur or Baghdad, is better than here. On some level it is irrational to hate an entire town, but I've got years worth of bad memories that I'm reminded of. And it's difficult to put the past behind you when it constantly stares you in the face. Like it as not, the town drains my spirit, which is why I've come to the conclusion that I really can't get going again until I leave.
As someone mentioned, I'm less cheerful than I used to be. The main reason for that, currently, is that I'm not where I want to be, geographically speaking. Let's get this out of the way up front, I'm 31 and living with my parents. To me, this is the sign of ultimate failing. Severe, ultimate failing. And, truth be told, since I don't have to worry about rent (although I do pay the electric and phone bills), there have been a few truths that I've had to come to grips with. I'm not as organized as I should be, and I need to develop more initiative. Things like these can be taken care of, but what really saps my spirit is that I'm living in my hometown.
My hometown, for the record, is Mio, Michigan. It is the county seat of Oscoda County, and has a little over 2,000 people in it. It's also dirt poor. From the Wikipedia entry:
"The median income for a household in the CDP was $26,831, and the median income for a family was $31,379. Males had a median income of $29,542 versus $20,927 for females. The per capita income for the community was $13,064. About 13.9% of families and 21.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.3% of those under age 18 and 13.4% of those age 65 or over."
I grew up here, living about a year when I was two or three, then coming back when I was five and basically living here until I left for college. As for how I feel about it...well, to be blunt, I hate it. With a passion. There is nothing good in this town. Absolutely nothing.
The first reason I hate Mio is because of its school system. In 1989, Mio won the Class D State Championship, when I was in the sixth grade. Prior to that, they had one all-star player named Jay Smith, who became such a celebrity while he was in high school that they named a road after him. I will say that when I was in sixth grade, I enjoyed rooting for the Mio varsity basketball team along with the rest of the town, and quite frankly enjoyed when the principal called a half-day when the basketball team went down to East Lansing for the playoffs. Shortly afterwards, I learned exactly how much Mio and the school system loved basketball.
Let me just say that I have never considered myself a great athlete. I like being active, but I've never been that great at basketball. Not being good at basketball in a town that only prizes skill at basketball is, honestly, kind of eviscerating...that's the best way to put it. So what if I was smart? So what if I could draw? I couldn't play basketball, and that was pretty much all that mattered. As an example, my math teacher during junior high was the coach of the varsity basketball team. What this meant was that during basketball season, our class learned nothing. Literally nothing. We would watch, along with the teacher/coach, the basketball games that had gone on during Tuesdays and Thursdays. On nights where there wasn't a game the night before, we watched the pro and college teams playing, so the teacher could devise new strategies. During playoffs, the teacher would watch tapes of the other teams. As I said, I learned nothing. It's also not conducive to learning math if you don't know how to do some homework, and the teacher doesn't want you to interrupt because he is watching the replays.
Of course, other teachers had that attitude. Mostly, they were math teachers. While I won't name my junior high math teacher, as he's since passed away, Mr. Kaufman is still among the living. He taught high-school math, and his lectures were all the same. The first twenty minutes were spent talking about the new concept we were supposed to learn. The other forty minutes were spent chatting with the jocks about their game. In the meantime, I would be struggling to understand the concept, only occasionally getting Mr. Kaufman's attention. In an interesting tangent, Mr. Kaufman was also one of the teachers who let me know that I would not be able to make it at the University of Michigan, because the University of Michigan placed more value on academics than Mio, and boy did I ever have it easy in Mio...according to Mr. Kaufman, I would have to work twenty hours a day to stay afloat at the University of Michigan, and if I did, I might be able to pass. Might.
Of course, the basketball players got special treatment. One vivid memory is a math test, a quarter-final. I was taking that consisted of two pages. I turned in my math test just after one of the starters on the basketball team had turned his in. Except for the name, the entire first page was blank.
On a quarter-final.
And he still got a C in the course.
Granted, when I was on the Quiz Bowl, I don't recall getting that good of a deal. In fact, I recall that I had the screws put to me when I had to miss a math class for a Quiz Bowl match.
What really kind of hurt, though, was that I really didn't have any friends from grades 6 to 12. I had a fair number of good acquaintances, although I learned pretty quickly that I was kept around mostly so the other kids would have an adversary. As in, would you rather exclude someone you liked in, say, hide and seek, or would you rather invite someone you didn't care for anyway so they were the ones who had to find you and your friends?
I remember hating the day before school started, roughly from grades 10 through 12, because I knew it was another year of not being liked and not being talked to, except to be insulted, teased, what-have-you. I remember eating lunch alone, trying to fit in with the guys one grade above me, and never *quite* doing it.
When people usually talked to me in high school, it was usually to criticize or insult me somehow. I was the low man on the social totem pole, the shy, artistic kid with some geeky tendencies, and that...well, that made me a target for so many people it was incredible. Quite a few basketball players took their shots at me, and one of the nastier delinquents lined me up in his sites for a few months until he got expelled (or dropped out, I don't know which). In Mio, the generally accepted way to settle your differences was by spinning the other person around, hitting them, then continuing to hit them until they didn't move or until the teachers restrained you. The Mio rules forbade brawling, even if you were defending yourself, so I tried to follow the rules, and subsequently backed down from damn near every conflict. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have fought back and put a few bullies into intensive care. Following the rules is so not worth it when the result is a loss of self-respect.
I should point out that I wasn't completely and utterly alone. In the last half of my junior year, I was on good terms with the members of the first three "street gangs" in Mio. Yes, street gangs in Mio compared to the Bloods or the Crips are like a toy poodle compared to a rabid polar bear, but we were all outcasts, dammit. And in the last, say, eighth of my senior year, some of the students warmed up to me, God knows why. Still, spend most of your time being mocked, teased, insulted, or the target of whatever prank someone thinks is funny, and when someone wants to be friends, you take their offer very, very cautiously.
One thing that really and truly got to me was that my achievements were usually met with a barely-concealed yawn. My parents liked when I got an A on a test, but the rest of the class hated me for it. When I got an All-A report card, my parents were happy, but it was really no big deal to anyone else. When I was in the school plays, it was also no big deal. When I was in the Quiz Bowl, no big deal. I wanted desperately to be noticed, to have someone other than my parents say I was doing a good job, or that I was alright. And yes, I got recognized at the annual academic rewards, but...well, this is where basketball came in again. By comparison, the academic awards could fill up maybe a quarter of the gymnasium, on a good year. Maybe. The fall and winter sports awards show, on the other hand, filled up the entire gym to capacity, and the kids who got the awards got their names in the paper, had trophies, and had people cheering for them. Yes, I was jealous. Looking back, though, it was more because I wanted to be recognized and of course, wasn't. I don't recall anyone coming to me and saying "Hey, you did a great job in that play!" or anything like that. It's really, pathetically, Charlie Brown-like, I know, but I really did want to be liked, and quite frankly I wasn't.
While we're on the subject, I should mention girls. My first attempt at romance was a cheerleader, who, on the advice of my mom, I was nice to for about a year before I wrote a love letter, and got a two-page hate letter in return. I asked out two other girls after that, and was shot down by both of them, and being near constantly alone during the slow songs at the school dances.
So yeah, to sum it up, my years in the Mio-AuSable school system sucked. I learned just how nasty kids can be firsthand. And quite frankly, it tore my self-esteem and self-confidence to shreds. On some level, I recognize now, it became apparent that whatever I did, I couldn't win. So I kind of gave up for awhile and just went through the motions, smiling and pretend things didn't hurt when they did, not trying to win because, hell, how could I?
I swore to God and everyone that I would never come back here, and it would seem that God has a nasty, nasty sense of humor, especially as I came back having failed hard as an entrepeneur.
I went out and had a drink with some of my classmates two years ago, in one of the local bars. None of them, and I do mean none, had really moved beyond high school. I hate that period of my life with a passion, and to them it had never stopped. The ex-basketball players had a little less esteem than they did when they were still playing, but their names were known around that bar. My classmates talked about how much fun they had in high school, the parties that all the classmates had had, and what formerly popular boys were screwing the formerly popular girls. They were literally living high school all over again.
I think it was at that point I started to actively hate Mio and everyone in it.
I try very hard currently not to be seen or talk to anyone I might know in Mio. The day takes a serious downturn, in my opinion, if I have to talk to a former classmate or the parent of a classmate, or anyone who knows me on a first-name basis in Mio. I despise everyone here who has set their sites so low that they are comfortable living here and reliving their teen years. I hate that people have seen my articles in the local paper and consider me a raging success for having done so. I hate that the twenty and thirtysomethings drink at one particular bar, the fortysomethings and fiftysomethings drink at another bar, and the sixtysomethings and seventysomethings drink in yet another bar. I hate that this is all they aspire to, that their day jobs just give them beer money so they can fuck a former cheerleader. And above all, I hate that they look at themselves and their little town that they keep clean of anyone and anything that isn't white and Christian, and consider themselves superior because they aren't the big city. I will not date anyone within 60 miles of here, because I will not put up with someone whose goals are so low that they settled here.
To be fair, I could deal with Mio when I was down in East Lansing, being my own person. Now that I'm back here, though, I'm confronted with it twenty-four hours a day.
Looking back, I'm not sure whether or not this makes me a horrible person. It is what I am, though, and it's why I am now desperately trying to get out. I've come to the conclusion that a job anywhere, including Darfur or Baghdad, is better than here. On some level it is irrational to hate an entire town, but I've got years worth of bad memories that I'm reminded of. And it's difficult to put the past behind you when it constantly stares you in the face. Like it as not, the town drains my spirit, which is why I've come to the conclusion that I really can't get going again until I leave.