G: 9/11/02

Work Diary, 9/11/02

Besides finding his pet goat slaughtered and frozen in the deep freeze,
one of my favorite stories about my partner was told to me by his
mother before she died. "He came home one day from school," she said,
"And I asked him how his day was. Next thing you know, he started
crying and saying, 'They're all so stupid!'"

He was referring to his classmates, of course, and if it's possible, I
believe that might have been the beginning of some spiritual connection
between us.

A similar experience happened to me in the first grade. We students
often sat in small groups and read out loud, going round and round
until the story was finished or until everyone had had a chance to
read. One day, as I took my turn, the teacher's aide slammed her book
shut, causing everyone to jump and look up at her. "You always read too
fast!" she said to me, "And if I can't understand you, how do you think
them other childrens is going to?" Then she told me I was no longer
allowed to read to the group.

Thus began a process
that...would...slowly...have...driven...me...insane - had I not happily
discovered the joys of misbehaving. Anyone who's ever taught children
to read will know exactly what I'm talking about: Five minutes of
"S-s-she
t-tuke...t-t-took...the..b-b-ball...and...th-th-throw...th-th-th-rew...it"
is enough to send Job himself screaming from the room. And at six-years
old, sitting in a group of slow readers, my feet twitching in time with
my eyelids, I did feel like screaming.

So sometimes I did. Or I pinched the girl sitting next to me. Or
started fights or drew dirty pictures in library books or stole school
supplies from the kid next to me. In the second grade I won several art
contests, yet still spent a good quarter of each school day sitting
outside in the hall. In the third grade I was moved to the upper math
tutorial but still managed to make my teacher put her head on her desk
and cry. The fourth grade proved tougher - my teacher being over
sixty-years old and quite immune to children - but she still had to
admit I was the only one with neat enough handwriting to write on the
chalkboard, even if she did have to stick me under her desk to stop my
"cutting up." In the fifth grade my teacher stared at me disbelievingly
as I handed her a long stem rose the day after she'd sent me to the
principal's office for stealing book money. My fifth grade teacher was
my favorite, despite her attempts to discover just how I was cheating
on tests to make all those A's (I wasn't cheating; the tests were just
so?well, elementary).

Then we were shipped off to middle school, and my miscreant boy genius
days were over. My IQ didn't drop; rather, middle school was a
terrifying nightmare of older boys and girls and gym teachers who
required showers after each sweaty, miserable game of football. I hated
that school. Fortunately, my mother died, I moved to a different state
and a better school, and my grades improved. "A model student," said
the report cards, and it was nice. Sometimes I wish I still had someone
to call me a "model" anything: boyfriend, employee, cook,
conversationalist.

But I don't, because I'm not a model anything anymore. My partner, who
is probably just short of being a genius, gets all sorts of accolades
for his work. He meets people easily, makes friends just as well, and
is never at a loss for the right word in an argument. I have one good
friend, hide my shyness in sarcasm, and get a promotion only to be
accused by my coworkers that I'm a kiss-up. My partner has a
well-grounded sense of what's right; I am the world's worst relativist,
excusing bad behavior - including my own - for the silliest of reasons.
My partner is moderation; I am excess.

I have no wish to be a child again; those days are blessedly over. Good
riddance, too. I'm missing something, though, some type of
psycho-babble-y, self-esteem-y, sense-of-self thing that, by all
accounts, I appear never to have had (and that others appear to have in
abundance).

So, I move right along, the anti-hero of my dreams. I alternate between
a manic-depressive whirlwind of wants and needs, usually keeping myself
somewhat balanced but feeling just as empty on either side. And because
it is, after all, September 11th, I can't help but use those terrible
events as a sounding board for my own state of mind. Some days may be
awful, but compared to what? My own quirks and stupidities and feelings
of dread are such small things, insignificant when placed next to the
scope of what has happened and what will happen.

Now, there's a pathetic bit of irony for you: A human being - said to
be decent and caring - benchmarking his own stability through
tragedy.