2002-04-01
6:59 p.m.
About
I thought that maybe I would write something here to educate you, the reader, of who I am and what this whole diary thing is about.
First and foremost, this is not in any way shape or form a diary. I don’t even think it could qualify as a journal as I rarely keep logs of my daily life. What is here is random thoughts and feelings that, when I am not too lazy, normally would get filed away in my internal filing cabinet - maybe never to be thought of again.
I try to make most of it somewhat entertaining or at least halfway interesting because I like people to read what I have here, and I want something to keep them coming back to do so. Most of the time I fail in this. Occasionally, a snippet of ultra depressing rambling gets past my "drama sensors" and into these archives. I invite you to ignore them and move on; unless of course you are one of those Goth people that revel in that sort of thing, then I invite you to stop whining.
A short history as I remember it...
I was born in the summer of 1979, a great time to be born. From what little I know about the past, there was a great blizzard in the winter of '78 forcing many bored husbands and wives to stay indoors and inevitably have sex to relive said boredom. Much to my dismay, monotony stopped breeding sex after everyone figured out the Village People weren't cool anymore. If that were still the case I'd be fucking Casanova. But still, being raised a child of the sexual revolution didn't really have an adverse affect on me, mainly because I was reared by baby boomers.
At the tender age of 16mos, my mother didn't feel that having a husband and a son was too cool, so she split. My well-meaning father did the best he could in a society that didn't much like single parents, much less a single father. Thus he relied on his mom and dad to help out. And help they did. In three short years, Grandma and Grandpa made the switch to "mom and dad" and I was legally adopted leaving my father to pursue other endeavors like finding another wife and having an army of children (6 in all).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this in the least. With my Grandparents, I was given the most sane and prosperous upbringing possible. I can only imagine the horrors if I would have stayed with either of my biological parents ::shudder::.
Childhood was a blur of Transformers, You Can't Do That on Television and Atari. Then grade school started - life was certainly underway. I didn't see school as much an institution of learning as I did a way to not be bored. You see, home was rife with monotony, being the only child that lived in our tiny rural sprawl. Our neighborhood boasted only 17 homes, most filled with elderly couples, and retired servicemen. This left my young imagination to grow impossibly wild. My backyard transformed into another world. I mastered Chris-Fu honing my skills against the dreaded Oak Tree Clan. As a lone knight, I conquered dangerous dragons to save princesses. I led armies of soldiers into battle against an evil nemesis plaguing the Earth. This all wasn't very easy. Damn it if there weren't evil nemeses attacking the earth at least one a week; a child's work is never done.
Of course, my sometimes overactive imagination made me sort of a misfit at school. I wasn't entirely a social creature, much preferring a book of adventure to paying attention to my teacher or classmates. It was then that I met Steve.
My first encounter with Steve was what most social misfit encounters are like. He picked on me. Steve who came to be known through high school as quiet, stoic, and introspective, picked on me. My masochistic little mind found his newly formed club, "The ChrisBusters" intriguing. Of course, now I recognize that it was a pitiful little organization with only two members: Andy M. and Steve. Within a year, ChrisBusters was dissolved for reasons that I don't remember and we became good friends.
By first grade, I realized that I was the hyper one. I was easily excitable, and grew bored easily. Thankfully I was also a fast learner, and found out quickly what my limitations were in regards to the rest of society, and I never missed a opportunity to test them. At the same time I had also developed a large fear of getting in trouble. My grandfather, rest his soul, never hit me, but one look from those deep serious eyes was enough to break the resolve of Optimus Prime. Of course, he had plenty of time to master that stare, being in the Air Force for 20 years and all, 6 of those years in wartime as a DI. This lead to a series of inner conflicts that plagued me through most of my adolescence. I wanted to break every barrier and every rule, but I didn't want to pay for it.
Figuring maybe God would help, I joined a church. It was no coincidence that this was the same church that Steve and his family attended. Well, the only thing that I found there was a whole new set of rules with consequences much worse than Grandpa could muster with his eyes. But, I stayed because it was more time to spend with my best friend, everyone was friendly, and all the women there smelled matronly. It was like a big family extension. It was there that I found what I believe to my only talent - music.
I started singing in the children's choir, a mishmash of people that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would also be pursuing their musical talent with me in our high school band. I honestly can't remember any of the songs we sang, but I'm sure they were all annoying church hymns. After a year or so, my grandparents introduced me to the one of the two objects that I would grow to cherish - my uncle's trumpet.
My uncle is several years younger than my dad, and was just finishing up high school when I was introduced to the household. Though I do not have any distinct memories of him, I do know that he was a fairly accomplished trumpet player. When he graduated, he moved on to other passions letting his old instrument collect dust in the basement. Grandpa, seeing a possible semblance here, decided to see what I could do. The following year I joined the middle school band and started down a road that would shape my life for years to come.
But in the meantime, I was just trying to be an ordinary kid.
Middle school was a tough place for a guy like me. Hell, society is tough place for a guy like me. The hyperactive, geeky fat kid with the trumpet is a sure target for prepubescent ridicule. Of course it didn't help that I was also a Boy Scout. I think that the grandparents decided that I needed to release this extra energy in some positive way, and the Boy Scouts seemed to be the place to do it. The funny thing was, I actually liked it. Steve on the other hand, did not.
After my little taste of middle school society with my brain barely changing it's attitude toward it, I began to develop a strong sense of rebellion.
The endless scorn of a sixth-grade class, my departure from the normal worries of adolescence, and (could it get any worse?) my new-found interest in roleplaying games caused me to develop my new mentality of "I am going to do the opposite of cool". And that's precisely what I did. I lopped off my mullet (I thank god for that every time I reminisce about those days), and insisted on wearing clothing my grandparents bought me without complaint (this usually consisted of flowery tropical shirts and straight-cut plain blue jeans - no acid wash here). Vanilla Ice? No, it was Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven. Boyz II Men? No, it was Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Benny Goodman. Of course, everything my uncle used to listen to was still all right with me: Iron Maiden, Ozzy, The Misfits, etc. Of course all of these things didn't help field a good rapport with my classmates. It made me an easier target.
In a sense, it really did get under my skin, but their constant taunts fueled me. They made me more powerful and more defiant. By the time I got to high school, I know who I was, where I was going, and why. The problem was, there were a few people that were just like me.
tbc...
Latest Entries
Making booze - 2005-07-08
Konnichiwa bitches! - 2005-07-07
The End - Phyche! - 2003-08-15
I love my job - 2003-07-28
Applying Maslow - 2003-07-24
All here is the intellectual property of their respective owners.
copyright Ben Noble 2001 - 05.
Hosted by Diaryland.