Con or Bust

[sartorias]

Many goodies on offer! Including my donation, two rare chapbooks from 1979--by Pau Edwin Zimmer--and 1984, a signed and numbered Jane Yolen story printed by Charles de Lint's Triskell Press, with an intro from John Crowley.

As one of those personal ironies, the book I am reading this morning is Nobody Passes, edited by Mattilda, AKA Matt

Comments

[serialbabbler]

Yep. Blend into the background. Become one with the wallpaper. Don't breath too much of their air or take up too much of their space and maybe they won't notice you even if you aren't like them. Never was any good at that. I think I must have accidentally become one with the wrong wallpaper and forgotten to blend back when the background changed.

(The link isn't working, by the way. I think you have an errant quote mark in there or you left something out.)

[sartorias]

Thank you, and thank you.

[storme]

Yeah, much of my secondary school time -- especially at boarding school -- was spend trying to learn (and failing) to pass. I remember vividly the times it worked, and more vividly the times that even now I can't fathom out: a girl who chased me around threatening to gouge my eyes out because, as far as I can recall, I'd gotten a letter from my parents and she hadn't gotten one from hers.

I quit boarding school, and went to a further education college to complete my high school studies. It worked out essentially as a straight trade of academic success for self-esteem and finding Others Like Me. I have absolutely no regrets about that choice.

[sartorias]

So much of our (short-sighted) education system serves as a reminder how very close we are to our monkey cousins.

[cmcmck]

I call it hiding in plain sight but as you know, I have 'passing privilege', although at least I have the good grace to be thankful for it and for early transition.

I knew those bullies and abusers. None better...........

[sartorias]

Yeah--'fading into the woodwork' was the phrase I picked up as a kid, avidly reading about spies and stories with disguises.

[sartorias]

The book goes into all kinds of passing for a variety of motives. All I make claim to is a sliver of understanding of what it feels like under certain circumstances.

[asakiyume]

Your parents badgered you about what you might have done to cause it; I did that badgering to myself. (On the other hand, my bullying was very rarely the physical abuse you received.)

But yes, that phrase you quote is illuminating. Passing as the art of camouflage.

[sartorias]

Oh, I despised myself for being a target, believed I was a walking piece of nuclear fallout. What was wrong with me that I could be standing on the blacktop waiting for the bell to ring so I could get away from the gym, when some girl would grab my arm and smash me face first into a wall,but didn't do it to anyone else? I still have the habit of apologizing for my existence when I'm in public spaces, or anxious. These things do linger!

[kateelliott]

[sartorias]

I think it was the era--the school authorities were just the same. "What did you do to cause it?" was always their first question. Later, when I worked with peers who had been raped, or far more drastic horrors than I ever experienced, I totally got their distrust of authorities, a distrust based on fear and at some point, betrayal by the ones who were supposed to gatekeep civil law and sanity.