twelve years later...

I've been reading these discussions about bullying teens and kids killing themselves and senators wanting to pass laws they can't enforce because it hits a nerve. I was one of those kids who got more than my share of awfulness in those years.

Middle school was bad enough, and I remember thinking that high school would be better. I was a nerdy freshman at an all-girls Catholic school who didn't know anyone, and was there on a full scholarship rather than my parents' incomes. I had thought I would thrive there taking Latin and all that, but it was a year of hell. Girls are mean and cliquish and smell blood so easily. Since there were no boys to be an outlet for that energy, it was turned inward.

This was at the height of the boy band era and I was utterly unattracted to any of those teen idols with the frosted hair and the corny music. I've never really been attracted to 'beautiful people' anyway because I usually assume they're arrogant or mean, and found myself drawn more to the misunderstood musician types like Kurt Cobain.

But freshman year, this meant that if I didn't have a crush on Justin Timberlake or Nick Carter, I couldn't possibly be straight, and this being at an all-girls school, meant social suicide of the highest degree and everything that goes with that, the rumors, the eating lunch alone, threats in the locker room, and the way that girls could be so cruel.

I am so thankful that the dynamics of web 2.0 that's so pervasive now didn't exist then, because I can't even imagine how much worse that would make things. I wanted to drop out after one semester but the way my course schedule was set up, it would have messed up everything else.

This was also the year that Columbine happened so there was all sorts of paranoia regarding lonely outsiders with a love of doomy rock music and I was sent to the guidance counselor because of the bruises on my knees and the scars on my arms and wrists from the cat. The only time teachers intervened was when they feared that I would do something violent and vindictive. "You've got to watch those quiet ones..."

My dad let me cut class a lot and that helped me survive, and we'd spend Wednesday afternoons going to the art museum and driving around listening to Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Led Zeppelin on the radio so I wouldn't have to go back.



I transferred out at the end of that year, did a correspondence homeschool sophomore year to catch up and then transferred into a large public high school where I had no history with anyone. There were so many people that I blended in easily, was almost invisible being neither at the top or bottom of the pecking order, and slowly found a group of people that I got along ok with.

I don't know what the answer is. Kids are mean and cruel and they probably always have been. I never sought help from teachers because it got old to hear "well you've got to stand up for yourself" knowing that at that time I didn't have the toughness to do that without looking even more lame, knowing that if I protested too much it wouldn't do any good. I don't know if you can legislate this kind of thing either. It's like declaring a war on drugs or terror, you can't win. Thankfully, I had parents who loved me and found some support in other areas and I guess got through by the grace of God if nothing else in those times I'm so glad I never have to relive.

And it does get better. That doesn't mean that grown adults don't act like schoolchildren or that things don't still happen, but generally it's not so bad. All the drama that happened made me stronger and more sure of myself and gave me more empathy for others than I maybe would have had otherwise. If I ever have kids, I want to be sure to tell them to treat others the way they want to be treated, even if the way other kids treat them is terrible, because it seems so often that the ones who hurt are so often hurt by others.

playlist 10/5/10

gil scott-heron - where did the night go

bonobo - eyesdown

blue sky black death - skies open

little dragon - fortune

martina topley-bird - something to say

bat for lashes - two planets

willie isz - i didn't mean to

pariah - detroit falls

bomb the bass feat. mark lanegan - black river

ernestine deane - praha paradise

sade - by your side (cottonbelly remix)

esthero - i drive alone

pete rock - pete's jazz

morcheeba - blindfold

julieta venegas - eres para mi

savath & savalas - balcon sin flores

hello seahorse - bestia

the xx - crystalised

astrud gilberto - gentle rain

madlib - piano garden

lamb - gorecki

massive attack - live with me

nneka - your request

fugazi - the argument

dry & heavy - landing

cut chemist - sound of the police side 1

girls go to mars

I went up to church early for music practice and played the drums for awhile. I got a very basic crash course from a friend of mine awhile back about the whole snare and hi-hat bit so I just tried playing around with beats and time signatures and the sheer pleasure of hitting something and hearing something good come out of it.

I started my journey of musicianship with piano lessons as a kid, had an unsuccessful couple years of flute because my mom thought I might make friends in marching band, and started playing guitar at 14 because I was bored and a boy I liked played guitar, and picked up my uncle's bass when I was 16 to play in bands that thankfully never left the living room or basement.

And now, the drums. Now that I've learned to keep time, and actually have a kit (that I wish I played more but that's another story), I'm starting to learn the rudiments of keeping a rhythm, of being consistent and not showing off too much. The djembe's been a good start for that too, but someday, I hope to play as slick as this.

that's me in the corner

"Oh no I've said too much / I haven't said enough..."

If I could sum up most of my dealings in life, it would be with those two lines.

There have been so many times when I should have said something, and so many times I should have just shut up.

It's hard to know which one is the right one to do in any given situation.

I have said so many things I regret so intensely when good intentions get tied up with strong emotions and everything comes out in a jumble of salty language and half-baked arguments. And I have not spoken up so many times when I needed to, when I needed to tell the truth, be honest, stand up for someone. I'm getting better at speaking out without getting overly emotional, but there's times I wonder if my honesty will be the death of me.

It's hard when I see something that is very very wrong, not to say something.

I know that there have been times when others saw things in my life that I didn't see and cared enough to point them out to me. I remember being mad at first and then as time went on realizing, "Damn, they're right" and being thankful that they were willing to risk my good graces to be honest because they cared.

But that's just me. I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong but I'm realizing more and more that others would rather exist in the world of their own creation rather than face the truth.

I just wonder if it does any good sometimes to say it.

you have seen some unbelievable things...

When I was heading home yesterday, I saw a familiar car coming the other way, a black Impala with tinted windows and once I saw the green track jacket, knew it was an old friend from a time that seems more and more distant, when I was singlehandedly trying to teach kids to read and help their parents adjust to a world far different than where they came from.

We both pull over and start talking and catching up. I've run into him while grocery shopping but haven't really caught up with him since I went with him, my roommate, and his mom to get his car out of the Rocky River impound lot after he got pulled over for being the wrong person in the wrong place with a loud car system, an arrest record, and all that.

In an economy that's profoundly depressed in our city, he's gotten himself a full-time job working at an auto parts shop, where he's welding and cutting, and going to night school. Despite having a small rap sheet, he's studying criminal justice and wants to be a cop.

I tell him I'm stressed and tired, and wished he could see me on a day when I wasn't like this, that life has been a bit crazy this summer with the whole probation/recent life transitions and my dad nearly dying and everything, and then he hugs me and says, "Take it from me, you'll get through, and you'll be stronger. Look at where I've come from. You'll be ok."

And I realize how petty I sound, even if my tiredness and stress is for good reason. I almost forget that I'm talking to someone who escaped a genocide committed by machete, saw people he loved die violently, nearly starved to death in a refugee camp, whose father tried to leave him behind knowing what that would mean. He still has sisters stuck in Nairobi that they send money to, and talks about going back to Africa someday just to see it, but he never wants to live there again.

He came here as a teenager speaking no English and finding out that the streets aren't paved with gold, who considers looking "ghetto" a good thing to be so that he blends in and doesn't get messed with, where he's become someone so many people in his community rely on as a translator, babysitter, and an accidental advocate having been here long enough to know what's going on and move between two worlds.

We have a strange friendship of asking questions and learning and arguing about the dynamics of men and women (his attitude toward women being much more patriarchal), and I have been someone outside his circle that he can admit to that he sometimes cries himself to sleep thinking about the past.

I don't know what it's like to deal with all that, but we put ourselves in a bad place when all we can see is our own problems and forget about how many things are simultaneously going on outside of us...

shifting not drifting.

Sometimes when you're dealing with things you think you're the only one and then you realize that there's a million songs out there that speak to your emotions and suddenly they make so much more sense.

But this weekend was good despite everything. I went out to the east side for a Shabbat dinner at Moishe house that my friend Rachel and her roommates were putting on. I wasn't sure if I was at the right house, but the batik curtains and Matisyahu on the stereo led me to the right place.

Though I didn't know anyone except her and I was a little unsure if I'd belong it was the best decision I could've made and I had a wonderful time.

I wish I understood more Hebrew than the smattering that I somehow picked up somewhere so I could understand the ancient beauty of the prayers and blessings chanted over the table. The food was plentiful and delicious and it's definitely easier to keep kosher if everyone's vegetarian, and it felt like I'd stumbled into a Thanksgiving dinner but with total strangers with whom I'm suddenly discussing Thomas Merton, medieval mystics, various musical genres, trying to explain that not everyone in Parma has a swastika flag hanging in their living room, and the history of the Falasha with a guy who was shocked that I knew anything about Menelik and Ethiopian Judaism and told me "You gotta come party with the Falashas next Shabbat! We and the Jamaicans get down!" and that I needed to meet his mother.

I stayed late, helped clean up, exchanged phone numbers with kindred spirits, drove home thankful that as small as this city gets, there are still good people that I have yet to meet.

Saturday I stopped by to see my mom like I usually do and came outside to find the cat staring down this gigantic raccoon that was twice her size. Most of them were rabid and it was during the day and it's so painfully obvious that I'm a city kid when giant raccoons who don't run away when you get near them scare me. Heck, the squirrels weird me out too when they get friendly. What would I do if I lived somewhere with tigers, poisonous snakes, or gangs of violent monkeys? I guess I would do what I need to do.

The rain came down all weekend and I drove down to pick up my old Silvertone amplifier from Empirical where the guys told me that they'll miss it and had spent the last few days playing Led Zeppelin riffs on it. Drove down through the factories and bars listening to Gaslight Anthem and feeling melancholy yet strangely comforted by the rust and concrete that is beautiful and so familiar.

I've been packing boxes, trying to figure out what to throw away, wondering how I think I'm so unmaterialistic but somehow ended up with an apartment full of furniture, books, paint, and musical instruments. I think about my great uncle lonely in a house full of tchotchkes with the radio on all the time, talking about the good old days. I don't want to be like that.

I'm already figuring out this new phase of solitude, learning how to embrace what will be nights alone. I'm picking out colors of paint for the living room and setting aside one room for the studio space I've always wanted, making plans to share meals with friends so I'm not cooking dinner alone, and knowing that maybe this kind of change won't be so bad.

best of the blotter 28

THEFT, PEARL ROAD: Two juvenile males ran out on their bill after getting their nails done at approximately 6 p.m. Thursday.

Police located the boys, who agreed to pay for the services.

MISUSE OF A CREDIT CARD, HAVERHILL DRIVE: Police are investigating a Sept. 23 Fed-Ex delivery of a $500 camera to a man who claims he never ordered it. Police noted that it has become increasingly rare that a thief orders items on a victim’s credit card, then has the merchandise shipped to the victim’s house.

COMPLAINT, YOUNG AVENUE: It is not often that people complain about an overabundance of police attention in their neighborhood.

However, on Thursday, a Young Avenue resident complained that she was tired of seeing police cars drive through her apartment complex on a regular basis. She felt they came through too much

GRAND THEFT, GEO ZEIGER DRIVE: On Friday, a male resident and his wife who live at Four Seasons Apartments, reported 170,000 yen ($1,700 USD) stolen from their home.

THEFT, PEARL ROAD: Someone on Sept. 19 stole 37 packages of anti-flea products, worth $2,500, from a locked glass case at Pet World, 6859 Pearl.

COMPLAINT, DETROIT AVENUE: At 7:15 p.m. Saturday, police responded to a report of a man who was acting and walking like a zombie and scaring patrons of the Red Rooster Chicken and Deli. The man was detained and removed from the scene.