Thanks, ramblings, lizard update, and short [fndm]
First of all, lizard update: I touched him yesterday and I even let him crawl on me. In return for my bravery, I was plagued by nightmares of snakes who bit me all night last night. Ick. However, this is interesting. He likes warm places, obviously, and one of his favorite spots to curl up is the computer keyboard. So while I did laundry and cleaned up, hetook a nap on my lappie.
Also, I would like to say thanks to everyone who joined
for me when I asked because, yay! I won this round! Thanks, everyone! (Note to self: archive newest fics in memories before you forget, you goldfish.)
Futhermore, in Random Interesting Things: I was talking to sykod about The Butterfly Effect, Ashton's new movie, and while looking up information, I discovered that the butterfly effect is, indeed, a real mathematical bit of chaos theory. I love chaos theory and I love nerdy things like this, so I spend a good bit of time this afternoon learning something new. Yay for me.
Saw Gothika this weekend with the cousins, also. My love for Robert Downey, Jr. knows no bounds. I want to hug him and give him soup and keep him away from la cocaina, as Michael Ian Black would say. (Did I even spell that correctly? We here in Spanglish territory just say "la coca," which can't be right. Anyway.)
Still feeling like crap, but not so much, which means my break from grad school crap is over, as deadlines loom near. I really must get a move on. Also, expecting my written scores early this week. I hope I did well.
And finally, the best IM exchange of the day:
summerfling: Okay. Kelly Clarkson would be okay but her vibrato has GOT to go.
sykod: Her vibrator?
I lied. I have a question for the HP people. Didn't there used to be a snapeslash mailing list? What's a good list for Snape fic? My characterization needs some work, methinks. Thanks!
And now, I leave you with a personal short. I write these every once in a while; stories from my past that are part truth and part fiction. I think they're kind of silly, but a few of you seem to like them, so I'll keep posting them, I suppose.
I've never had much in the way of Christmas spirit. Christmas is a holiday to be spent with family, around warm fires with steaming mugs of hot chocolate, telling tales of the past year and sharing best wishes for the coming one. For me, however, the holidays never came close to matching the commercials and pictures on Christmas cards. Due to various family feuds, arguments, and hurt feelings, most of them so old the parties involved couldn't even remember why they didn't speak, my holidays were spent with the same five people I saw every day: my grandparents, my parents, and my little brother. Needless to say, this took away that special quality of the holidays and I always felt envious and out of place when friends would discuss their holiday plans; Aunt so-and-so coming in from Nevada or flying out to California to see Uncle so-and-so and the cousins.
I never even really looked forward to the presents at Christmas time, either. We weren't poor, but my parents were teachers and their riches came from the spirit of their job, not from their paycheck. I always felt vaguely guilty handing over my Christmas list and knew that I'd never get the things I wanted, so I never even asked for them. Come our return to school when my classmates at the ritzy, religious private school I attended (on scholarship and work study) would talk of new computers and new cars, extravagant vacations and expensive jewelry, I had only had books and a few CDs to brag about. Christmas, for me, was never anything special.
---
His name was Matt. Matt, whose mother was spending some of her obligatory mission time teaching history at my high school. Matt, who wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, wasn't rich, and wasn't popular. Matt, who sat beside me in English and whom I never really talked to. Children, as they are, have immense capabilities to be cruel and selfish and I was no different. Desperate to hold onto the small bit of acceptance and popularity I'd gained with my peers, I never talked to Matt much unless class work necessitated it.
And yet, on that Friday before the start of winter break where the thought of teaching anything was a joke and the students sat around discussing their holiday plans, Matt could see I was upset. He and I would have the much the same Christmas, and it would be miles away from the students around us chattering about plane rides and cruise ships. And despite knowing I was no better than him but pretended to be anyway, Matt reached out to me, perhaps in his own show of Christmas spirit.
"I know all the twelve redneck days of Christmas," he said to me out of the blue.
"What?" I replied, taken aback and subtly looking around to see if anyone had noticed me conversing with him.
"I know the twelve redneck days of Christmas. You like Jeff Foxworthy, don't you? I saw you carrying around that book of his a couple of weeks ago. I've always liked him. He's really funny, don't you think? My mom doesn't like me listening to him, but I do anyway. Have you heard his bit about the Olympics in Georgia? He references Deliverance, which any good redneck comedian should do." And there, in the middle of class, he rattled off the twelve redneck days of Christmas, despite my obvious distaste for the conversation. Around number five, I remembered why I liked Jeff Foxworthy. Around seven, I was laughing and by ten, I was infinitely glad for Matt's conversation.
For the rest of that Christmas season, whenever I felt sad or envious of others' own holiday plans, I'd think of Matt, who seemed to know I didn't want to hear his rendition of a redneck's Christmas, but that I needed it instead.
---
I'm ashamed to say I never discussed our comparatively small haul of Christmas gifts when I returned to school, nor did I talk to him much that rest of that year. He never seemed bothered by it; he was apparently content to return to the anonymity he'd had with me before winter break. As I said, kids can be cruel and selfish.
The year passed with little to remark on now, though I'm sure terribly cataclysmic and earth-shattering things happened during the next few months. After all, when you're seventeen, nearly everything is cataclysmic, even if it's just a new pair of shoes.
There was one honestly important event that year that came to pass during graduation. We'd had an English teacher when we began high school, an ex-Navy officer who left the Navy after the advent of the don't ask, don't tell policy. Teaching in a religious school certainly wasn't the ideal job for a gay man, but after years of living near oceans, his partner wanted, for a change, to live in the desert, and thus, he came to my high school.
He was an amazing teacher; some people are simply born with the gift of working with kids, and he was certainly one of them. Creative and innovative, patient yet with the knack to know just when to push, Mr. Nelson was the best teacher I'd ever had. We read Greek myths, talked Steinbeck, critiqued Fitzgerald, discussed Faulkner's apparent psychosis, and tried to make sense of Thoreau.
Everyone who stepped foot in that classroom and felt his magic agreed, without fail, that Mr. Nelson was one of the best. One of the Good Guys, you'd say. Everyone, that was, except the people who started committing hate crimes our junior year. Office and classroom break-ins, offensive graffiti, destruction of his books and computers, damage to his car, all because his partner happened to be a man. Needless to say, after his experiences in the Navy, he wasn't about to stick around and watch things go from bad to worse and at the end of that year, he let us know he was not going to return, much to the relief of the school's administration.
We never discovered who was behind the hate crimes, but the unanimous opinion amongst my classmates was that we wanted him present at graduation. Gay though he may be, he had been an important part of our growth as students and people and we wanted him to see the culmination of that. With that sentiment in mind, we sent a graduation invitation to he and his partner.
It was common knowledge that my friends and I had been behind this plan, and as such, we were the target for the administration's wrath. It was laughable to threaten the other students involved with suspension days before graduation, but I was threatened with the revocation of my valedictorian status upon which my full college scholarship was based. I'm proud to say we pressed on and that I myself interrupted our graduation ceremonies to honor Mr. Nelson for the work he'd done with us.
I felt proud of what I'd done, knowing I'd done something right. That changed when I got out to the parking lot to see my car had been doused in buckets of paint and racial slurs smeared across it.
That would've been my last memory of high school…if not for Matt.
---
I lived on one of the main roads through town, and Matt happened to pass by on his way to the small party his family was having for him. He rolled into my driveway in his clunky old Volkswagen station wagon and stuffed his tie in his pocket, picking up a sponge and immediately going to work helping me try to wash off the thick coat of paint.
"You did the right thing," he said. "We all knew it. And I'm proud of you."
I looked at him in surprise. With the insular society of high school fading away and the real world rapidly approaching, I'd been able to see some of my behavior in an objective light. How could this boy I'd at times taken pains to ignore be proud of me? Surely one good act didn't negate the sum of my treatment of him and I deserved nothing more than for him to laugh as he drove past.
We worked in silence for a bit, then he offered, as though he could hear my unspoken question, "I know how important it is to fit in. Kids can be terrible, and they're the most judgmental group of people you'll ever meet. I don't need to judge they way they do. I don't want to be like them."
He helped me wash my car off as best we could, and then he invited me to his party to meet his family. Nearly an hour late we were, hands stained pink, the hems of his pants dirty, but all these years later, it's not the bucket of dirty, soapy water I remember. It's Matt's simple goodwill, his easy forgiveness, his universal acceptance. That Christmas, he gave me laughter and a smile. That summer, he gave me a lesson in what really Christmas really means. There was no snow and Pomp and Circumstance is a long way from Silent Night, but it was a lesson in Christmas spirit all the same.
---
I'm not quite sure whatever happened to Matt. He went to West Point that summer and I saw the newspaper announcement for his graduation four years later, but that was the last I saw of him. I remember hoping that he'd had a far better party this time around that didn't involve washing cars but knowing Matt, it just might have.
I think about him every Christmas, and though it's now four people with me instead of five, it's still the same as every year before it. But thanks to Matt, I'm not the same. I'll raise a toast to him this year and let go of my own judgments and grudges and try to be, at twenty-five, the kind of person Matt was at seventeen.
Thank you, Matt.
Also, I would like to say thanks to everyone who joined
for me when I asked because, yay! I won this round! Thanks, everyone! (Note to self: archive newest fics in memories before you forget, you goldfish.)
Futhermore, in Random Interesting Things: I was talking to sykod about The Butterfly Effect, Ashton's new movie, and while looking up information, I discovered that the butterfly effect is, indeed, a real mathematical bit of chaos theory. I love chaos theory and I love nerdy things like this, so I spend a good bit of time this afternoon learning something new. Yay for me.
Saw Gothika this weekend with the cousins, also. My love for Robert Downey, Jr. knows no bounds. I want to hug him and give him soup and keep him away from la cocaina, as Michael Ian Black would say. (Did I even spell that correctly? We here in Spanglish territory just say "la coca," which can't be right. Anyway.)
Still feeling like crap, but not so much, which means my break from grad school crap is over, as deadlines loom near. I really must get a move on. Also, expecting my written scores early this week. I hope I did well.
And finally, the best IM exchange of the day:
summerfling: Okay. Kelly Clarkson would be okay but her vibrato has GOT to go.
sykod: Her vibrator?
I lied. I have a question for the HP people. Didn't there used to be a snapeslash mailing list? What's a good list for Snape fic? My characterization needs some work, methinks. Thanks!
And now, I leave you with a personal short. I write these every once in a while; stories from my past that are part truth and part fiction. I think they're kind of silly, but a few of you seem to like them, so I'll keep posting them, I suppose.
I've never had much in the way of Christmas spirit. Christmas is a holiday to be spent with family, around warm fires with steaming mugs of hot chocolate, telling tales of the past year and sharing best wishes for the coming one. For me, however, the holidays never came close to matching the commercials and pictures on Christmas cards. Due to various family feuds, arguments, and hurt feelings, most of them so old the parties involved couldn't even remember why they didn't speak, my holidays were spent with the same five people I saw every day: my grandparents, my parents, and my little brother. Needless to say, this took away that special quality of the holidays and I always felt envious and out of place when friends would discuss their holiday plans; Aunt so-and-so coming in from Nevada or flying out to California to see Uncle so-and-so and the cousins.
I never even really looked forward to the presents at Christmas time, either. We weren't poor, but my parents were teachers and their riches came from the spirit of their job, not from their paycheck. I always felt vaguely guilty handing over my Christmas list and knew that I'd never get the things I wanted, so I never even asked for them. Come our return to school when my classmates at the ritzy, religious private school I attended (on scholarship and work study) would talk of new computers and new cars, extravagant vacations and expensive jewelry, I had only had books and a few CDs to brag about. Christmas, for me, was never anything special.
---
His name was Matt. Matt, whose mother was spending some of her obligatory mission time teaching history at my high school. Matt, who wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, wasn't rich, and wasn't popular. Matt, who sat beside me in English and whom I never really talked to. Children, as they are, have immense capabilities to be cruel and selfish and I was no different. Desperate to hold onto the small bit of acceptance and popularity I'd gained with my peers, I never talked to Matt much unless class work necessitated it.
And yet, on that Friday before the start of winter break where the thought of teaching anything was a joke and the students sat around discussing their holiday plans, Matt could see I was upset. He and I would have the much the same Christmas, and it would be miles away from the students around us chattering about plane rides and cruise ships. And despite knowing I was no better than him but pretended to be anyway, Matt reached out to me, perhaps in his own show of Christmas spirit.
"I know all the twelve redneck days of Christmas," he said to me out of the blue.
"What?" I replied, taken aback and subtly looking around to see if anyone had noticed me conversing with him.
"I know the twelve redneck days of Christmas. You like Jeff Foxworthy, don't you? I saw you carrying around that book of his a couple of weeks ago. I've always liked him. He's really funny, don't you think? My mom doesn't like me listening to him, but I do anyway. Have you heard his bit about the Olympics in Georgia? He references Deliverance, which any good redneck comedian should do." And there, in the middle of class, he rattled off the twelve redneck days of Christmas, despite my obvious distaste for the conversation. Around number five, I remembered why I liked Jeff Foxworthy. Around seven, I was laughing and by ten, I was infinitely glad for Matt's conversation.
For the rest of that Christmas season, whenever I felt sad or envious of others' own holiday plans, I'd think of Matt, who seemed to know I didn't want to hear his rendition of a redneck's Christmas, but that I needed it instead.
---
I'm ashamed to say I never discussed our comparatively small haul of Christmas gifts when I returned to school, nor did I talk to him much that rest of that year. He never seemed bothered by it; he was apparently content to return to the anonymity he'd had with me before winter break. As I said, kids can be cruel and selfish.
The year passed with little to remark on now, though I'm sure terribly cataclysmic and earth-shattering things happened during the next few months. After all, when you're seventeen, nearly everything is cataclysmic, even if it's just a new pair of shoes.
There was one honestly important event that year that came to pass during graduation. We'd had an English teacher when we began high school, an ex-Navy officer who left the Navy after the advent of the don't ask, don't tell policy. Teaching in a religious school certainly wasn't the ideal job for a gay man, but after years of living near oceans, his partner wanted, for a change, to live in the desert, and thus, he came to my high school.
He was an amazing teacher; some people are simply born with the gift of working with kids, and he was certainly one of them. Creative and innovative, patient yet with the knack to know just when to push, Mr. Nelson was the best teacher I'd ever had. We read Greek myths, talked Steinbeck, critiqued Fitzgerald, discussed Faulkner's apparent psychosis, and tried to make sense of Thoreau.
Everyone who stepped foot in that classroom and felt his magic agreed, without fail, that Mr. Nelson was one of the best. One of the Good Guys, you'd say. Everyone, that was, except the people who started committing hate crimes our junior year. Office and classroom break-ins, offensive graffiti, destruction of his books and computers, damage to his car, all because his partner happened to be a man. Needless to say, after his experiences in the Navy, he wasn't about to stick around and watch things go from bad to worse and at the end of that year, he let us know he was not going to return, much to the relief of the school's administration.
We never discovered who was behind the hate crimes, but the unanimous opinion amongst my classmates was that we wanted him present at graduation. Gay though he may be, he had been an important part of our growth as students and people and we wanted him to see the culmination of that. With that sentiment in mind, we sent a graduation invitation to he and his partner.
It was common knowledge that my friends and I had been behind this plan, and as such, we were the target for the administration's wrath. It was laughable to threaten the other students involved with suspension days before graduation, but I was threatened with the revocation of my valedictorian status upon which my full college scholarship was based. I'm proud to say we pressed on and that I myself interrupted our graduation ceremonies to honor Mr. Nelson for the work he'd done with us.
I felt proud of what I'd done, knowing I'd done something right. That changed when I got out to the parking lot to see my car had been doused in buckets of paint and racial slurs smeared across it.
That would've been my last memory of high school…if not for Matt.
---
I lived on one of the main roads through town, and Matt happened to pass by on his way to the small party his family was having for him. He rolled into my driveway in his clunky old Volkswagen station wagon and stuffed his tie in his pocket, picking up a sponge and immediately going to work helping me try to wash off the thick coat of paint.
"You did the right thing," he said. "We all knew it. And I'm proud of you."
I looked at him in surprise. With the insular society of high school fading away and the real world rapidly approaching, I'd been able to see some of my behavior in an objective light. How could this boy I'd at times taken pains to ignore be proud of me? Surely one good act didn't negate the sum of my treatment of him and I deserved nothing more than for him to laugh as he drove past.
We worked in silence for a bit, then he offered, as though he could hear my unspoken question, "I know how important it is to fit in. Kids can be terrible, and they're the most judgmental group of people you'll ever meet. I don't need to judge they way they do. I don't want to be like them."
He helped me wash my car off as best we could, and then he invited me to his party to meet his family. Nearly an hour late we were, hands stained pink, the hems of his pants dirty, but all these years later, it's not the bucket of dirty, soapy water I remember. It's Matt's simple goodwill, his easy forgiveness, his universal acceptance. That Christmas, he gave me laughter and a smile. That summer, he gave me a lesson in what really Christmas really means. There was no snow and Pomp and Circumstance is a long way from Silent Night, but it was a lesson in Christmas spirit all the same.
---
I'm not quite sure whatever happened to Matt. He went to West Point that summer and I saw the newspaper announcement for his graduation four years later, but that was the last I saw of him. I remember hoping that he'd had a far better party this time around that didn't involve washing cars but knowing Matt, it just might have.
I think about him every Christmas, and though it's now four people with me instead of five, it's still the same as every year before it. But thanks to Matt, I'm not the same. I'll raise a toast to him this year and let go of my own judgments and grudges and try to be, at twenty-five, the kind of person Matt was at seventeen.
Thank you, Matt.