Yesterday I played tennis for the first time in my life. I've always wanted to try tennis out. I've liked the idea of it for years. And finally the playing occurred.

It was great. I especially liked it when I managed to hit the ball.

Tags: life in general

Life is o.k.
I'm happy to report that I'm going well with my resolutions for the year. Especially the one that goes "write every day." After fooling around with what works best for me, I've set the goal to write 300 words a day. This is modest as hell but reachable, and since I set this as my daily work goal I've only missed one day. Some days I do more, but typically I stop at 300, even leaving sentences unfinished (which gives me something immediate to get into when I start again).

Since I meet my goal every day, I feel accomplished all the time and optimistic, etc. I might bump it up to 400 or 500, but not much more. I'm exhausted on weekdays still, even with the re-tooled schedule which leaves me with more energy. Today I went to the store after work then crashed on the bed in all my clothes until 6:30, then headed to the coffee shop (where I am now) and wrote 300 words together with vegging out on the internet.

Another thing that is helping me write is that I don't worry about word choice or editing as I write. Only rarely do I restructure a sentence or stop and think about the unfolding of the narrative. I have a plot outline and I'm going with that. This isn't to say that I don't make new discoveries about the characters or the narrative as I go--I've learned a lot as I write, ideas often come in a rush--but I work them in in the heat of the moment, or else make a note somewhere of my discovery. But if I did worry about clause structure and rhythm and accidental rhymes as I went then I'd never get anything done. That used to be my problem when I wrote fiction in the past, and why I never finished anything. I'd break into a sweat and agonize over every line, every word and whimper that this was just too hard and could not be done.

When I've gotten to the end, that is when I will go back to edit. Then and only then.

I have one well-plotted story right now, 4,100 words are written of a projected 12,000. Another semi-plotted (mostly in my head) adventure/sword & sorcery story, about 3,700 words written and I have no idea how long that one will be. That's actually kind of pathetic, I should have more completed than this, but it has only been recently, since the new semester actually that I've been writing really in earnest, every day.

I'm also interested in the possibility of writing a narrative completely in the second person. How often has that been accomplished?

I'm also interested in the idea of writing collaboratively, writing and dropping the thread to have someone else pick it up and take it somewhere. Maybe a group blog.

Tags: life in general, writing
Current Music: Red Sparowes - Alone and Unaware, the Landscape was transformed in Front of Our Eyes

Let me write on something a little more happy than my entries of late. One, in spite of everything, I've been fighting to have a life outside of work, outside of school. this is very important. I'm doing this because I at least wanted a break from graduate school, but I'm no less busy, and lacking the amenity of taking a coffee break with a colleague to discuss the gaze in Roman literature. So teaching so far hasn't helped me recharge and rejuvenate. But look, I'm being negative. This is about good things!

So first of all I've been maintaining a reading schedule. I keep track of how many pages I read each day in a spreadsheet. It's my goal to read, before the year is out, the following books:

Resurrection (Tolstoy)
Natasha's Dance (figes)
Alexander the Great (Lane Fox)
The Writing Life
The Objects of Art (Wollheim)
Gracchi to Nero (Scullard)
Alexander to Actium (Greene)
Roman Revolution
Julius Caesar (Grant)
Literary Theory vsi
The Professor and the Madman
Baudolino (Eco)

And one or two others, they are escaping me. I usually read when I get home, provided I have the energy. This is an ambitious reading list, considering I have maybe an hour or two a day to read. Finishing would require reading 55 pages a day...

I've also started a group called Society for the Appreciation of Books in Spoken Form - Greensboro Chapter. Long ago, when I lived here before, Christian, Charlotte and I got an idea to read aloud to one another, amidst foods cooked by Christian (primarily because he is really an artisan of food). this didn't really ever happen for a certain reason, but we did read some Gibbon. So far this new group is coming along slowly, but meeting primarily through my insistence. Hopefully I can draw further members in, but I don't know many people in this town anymore--those I do know are involved in their own affairs, etc. So far we've read Virgil, Borges, T. Williams, E. Wharton, Mimnermus, others.

I'm also reading Tristan and Iseut every night on the phone to my girlfriend. yep, I have a real girlfriend finally. It's a scandalous tale. But she's the Perfect One, and i'm in love like I'm 17 again.

What else? Oh, I'm writing. I got so excited about writing when I thought I wouldn't get a job that I couldn't put the pencil down. I'm still not in the habit of writing every single morning though, but that's what i'm working on, getting up at 4 or 5 and writing. At this point, I'm like, "I have to do this, because there is no way i can keep teaching. This is what I am, this is what I will do." So i'm doing it, with mixed results--I'm not writing anything brilliant, but I'm getting the practice in, getting back into that rythym I used to have. And the more I write, the more ideas I get; I discover things and imagine more. stories and dreams, having lain dormant for a while, are breating once again and stirring inside me.

Tags: life in general, writing

I wrote a draft of this and accidentally deleted it; I have not since been in the mood to re-write it. But here goes! I was talking to a friend about high school and stuff recently and he told me that when we met, this stuff is something that had already happened to me. So I must have been a freshman--I was 15 when all this went down. I know that in some ways it doesn't seem like what happened was a big deal. Even to me now, reading over these posts, it seems pretty minor in some ways. but living through it was very different.

thinking back, too; christian (that's my friend) and I noted that pretty much everyone we knew hasn't "made it" at all. They're still dicking around and failing at life. None of them have amounted to anything. This is probably because we were all fucking damaged in some way or another. I'm talking serious fucked-up-edness. At the time declaring ourselves as "freaks" felt like posturing and I wasn't comfortable with that. But looking back there was truth to it and this is probably what caused the formation of our social group in the first place. We were all eventually called to the same place, the place wher we could just be fucked up. That place turned out to be the "scene."

But anyway, to continue the narrative of the first post...this teacher beat me up...I still can't remember his name. So what happened after this that was worse? Well, first, I was grounded. My parents wanted to know what I had done to get in trouble with the police (yes, you're reading that correctly).

the guy was originally charged with assault, but his lawyer got it reduced to simple assault. He also got several continuances until the bus driver who witnessed the whole thing couldn't make it. I don't know why my friend who was walking with me didn't testify; I suppose that he wouldn't have been considered credible.

I was pulled out of the gifted classes in high school and put in regular classes. this was horrible: the teachers in the regular classes didn't treat the students like human beings. the teachers were assholes and I remember being shocked. And this isn't teenage "man, teachers are assholes" stuff. I'm talking specifically about teachers of regular vs. gifted students. I don't think that the teachers of regular students gave much of a shit and they acted like we were a waste of time.

the principal called me into the office one day and told me to drop the charges being pressed on the teacher/bodyguard. He didn't ask, either. He threatened me. He told me that this girl Nicole had been subject to several death threats and so on, then accused me of being the one behind it all. He suggested that I had pointed at her in the hall with my hand shaped like a gun and shouted "pop, pop!" I was completely shocked at all this because I hadn't even heard rumours about this stuff. Someone was completely fabricating all of this. And I couldn't believe that he didn't care to actually find out whether I had anything to do with any of this. He just assumed that I did.

He told me that charges of some kind would be brought against me for threatening to kill this girl. So I should drop the charges against the bodyguard/teacher.

In retrospect, he was probably intimidating me because he could have gotten in deep shit for having allowing this maniac on campus in the first place! I don't know why nothing ever happened with that. dude could have had a scandal on his hands.

So the principal is intimidating me in private one-on-one conversations; the guidance counselor has deemed me 'troubled' and thought it was a good idea to put me in regular classes (pretty damning in itself, if ever I had decided to stay on the high-school/college path...and moving me had nothing to do with any behaviour of MINE.). and my parents were either aloof (I don't even remember where my dad was during all this) or outright accusatory (my mom). The only person who I thought was "on my side" was the cop on the case...he couldn't believe the shit that was going on. Over time that changed. I guess he started to second-guess himself when it seemed like everyone else was pointing fingers at me. It seemed like no one believed that i really hadn't done ANYTHING, even though there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on my part, because I hadn't done anything.

No one pulled me aside and said, "look, I know you didn't do anything;" no one fought for me. I was just 15 and couldn't, or didn't feel like I could do anything. How would I fight it? I was worried about being arrested for attempted murder or something and my parents were just going to shake their heads in disappointment as they dragged me off to jail and they'd do nothing but pray.

In retrospect, I think that the principal was probably fucking the girl so he got her a bodyguard who was a fucking maniac. When this stuff went down he probably could have lost his job or at least been reprimanded in some way, so he intimidated the shit out of me. The whole thing wouldn't have been so scarring if my parents or someone with the ability to do so would have really fought for me or reassured me that they knew I didn't do something wrong.

So eventually the case went to mediation. which was bs and I shouldn't have agreed to it but after several months i felt hopless and unable to fight the whole thing. Mediation was a nightmare. I was alone with a greasy mediator and the teacher guy. The whole thing lasted maybe 15 minutes. I didn't get much of a chance to speak at all because the teacher guy immediately started ranting all this shit about me, interrupting me every time I did speak and plus I was still scared of him. The mediator didn't try to make the guy let me talk. eventually I had to agree to leave Nicole alone and he agreed to leave me alone.

that really pissed me off. now there's documentation out there that I *was* doing something wrong.

After all this went down the bodyguard was removed from campus. But then a lot of the preppy guys decided to torment me. Not in school, but on several occasions outside of school I'd find myself confronted about about 10 guys. "C'mon man, I thought you were crazy. Let's fight," and they'd chase me for hours, trying to catch me and beat the shit out of me. (Never in school of course since they were the "good kids.")

Before this happened, I was an introverted nerd who didn't do anything "bad." After this--well, at least I became somewhat cool, in that I had a mystique of danger maybe. But I started getting into pot, drinking, acid, paint thinner, glue and air dusters. I sniffed a lot of glue and almost burned my friend's house down when I was high once. I also became a very angry person. Rage.

For years afterward I'd suffer from panic attacks and sleepless nights. Anyway. It's over! But I think there are two major recurring issues from this:

1. Lack of agency. Essentially I haven't felt like I'm in control of my life.
2. Fear that other people think I'm an asshole/murderer/etc. I tend to assume that people dislike me or are afraid of me when they meet me.

Now it's not like I think this through; these are just issues that keep recurring. It isn't rational at all. But for some reason, when fucked up things like this happen to people it adversely changes their behaviours.

I talked about this with my mom the summer before I started grad school and she apologized for the way she handled everything and told me she's felt a lot of regret over the years. That was nice. Haven't talked to my dad about it ever, but I don't get to talk to him much. I'm actually on the brink of openly disowning him anyway.

p.s. even though I consider myself to have "dealt with" this stuff, writing these entries was very taxing. They are poorly written because I don't have the energy to write well about it. I'm *tired* now.

Tags: life in general, the past
Current Music: Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock

The title is perhaps misleading. There were of course many factors involved, several of which I am likely not even aware. But in this post I'm going to tell you about what I feel is the single most important cause. Sure, I may have dropped out anyway had the following not happened to me. But after some reflection I've come to the conclusion that it was this event, more than anything else, which drove me from high school. I wish I could say that it was a high-minded idealism which led me out of high school, but I have to admit that that probably wasn't the case. The following event also had a major impact on my life for several years afterward.

I've overcome the whole thing by now, but it took a lot of hard work and sleepless nights. I was unable to talk about it because the story is so incredulous that i figured no one would believe me. This event also contributed greatly to my estrangement from my parents.

I'm going to just write it out, as accurately as possible, including the one mistake I made. Of course, high school left me so scarred I actually can't remember a lot of it. There are huge black holes in my memory and everything is jumbled up. But this event I remember very well. I've replayed it in my mind hundreds and hundreds of times. I'm going to use real names because FUCK those people, they don't deserve privacy, and they really messed me up.

SO, high school. I was quiet. I was in gifted classes. I sat in the back and stuck to myself and didn't have a lot of friends. However, there was a group of skaters that I would hang out with sometimes. I got to know them because I had played Robotech with one of them in middle school. Aaron. I didn't hang out with these guys outside of school that much, but I sat with them at lunch every now and then. They accepted me, I think because I knew Aaron, even though he wasn't into gaming anymore. Not as cool as skating. But really these guys were more acquaintances than anything at this point (I started hanging out with them a lot more later on, and many of us got jobs at the same restaurant.)

It was hard to have friends anyway, because my parents were very reticent to ever let me "go out" or anything. I developed a strategy of not catching the bus home and hanging out after school, walking home later even though I lived at least five miles from the school. I mostly hung out with my friend Kemp, who I'd known since third grade and who was my only significant friend at this point.

Now, in my history class there was a girl named Nicole. Nicole Price. Even though she was in one of my classes I had never spoken with her and honestly I was barely cognizant of her.

For some reason, this girl had a bodyguard. His name is one of those things I can't remember. I have no idea what it was. I do remember that he was huge and that he was a wrestler.

And for some reason--I learned this later from the police--the principal of the school, Stanley Elrod, thought it would be a good idea to have this body guard on school grounds. As far as I can tell, all this bodyguard did was bully and intimidate anyone who made fun of Nicole. And of course, it being high school, people did make fun of her. She was actually very popular, very preppy, but a little ugly.

It just so happened that the people who made fun of her most were the skaters I ate lunch with.

Of course, the principal could technically allow a bodyguard to stalk the school grounds, so he gave the guy a job as a substitute teacher.

I need to pause here for a moment and stress that I was not best friends with these skater dudes at this point. And I had nothing to do with making fun of Nicole. I never even interacted with her. But one day the bodyguard went up to the skaters and threatened them and told them to tell me to leave Nicole alone. To stop staring at her and stalking her. We all joked about this--being young we never thought anything was serious, and it seemed absurd on the face of it, because I wasn't doing anything. I was surprised about the threat. I mean, I didn't stare at her. What on earth.

But then I thought it would be funny to go up to Nicole in the hall and stare at her for about ten seconds. That was pretty stupid. (this is the one mistake I made.)

That afternoon I was walking with Kemp, passing in front of an elementary school. Suddenly a car screeches to a stop in front of us, cutting off a school bus packed with little kids. The bodyguard jumps out of the car and yells, "You messin with Nicole?" I say no right before he punches me, hard, in the chest and I fall on my ass. He then grabbed my hair and got right in my face and yelled, a lot. I don't remember much of what he said other than "Next time I won't be so friendly," before he punched me in the face, knocking me to the ground again.

That evening two police officers came by my house. The bus driver whom the bodyguard had cut off had called the police and written down his license plate number. Somehow the police had worked out that I was the one assaulted. I remember that when I had gotten home I immediately was yelling and telling my parents to call the cops etc etc. they were pretty incredulous until the cops actually showed up.

I haven't gotten to the worst of it yet. I'll post part two later tonight or tommorrow.

Tags: high school, life in general, the past
Current Music: Windy & Carl - Depths

The first list is a list of books on or next to my bed. This could be a meme, you know. I always take a little something with me to bed, to soften my loneliness. Collegi ut quaeque in manus venerat:
1. Alexander to Actium - Peter Green
2. In Praise of Idleness - Bertrand Russell
3. Oxford Companion to Philosophy (the first edition, hardback. One of my fave bedmates.)
4. The Idea of History - Collingwood
5. Them - Joyce Carol Oates (perhaps my favourite novel.)
6. Events and Their Names - Jonathan Bennett
7. Modern Philosophy - Roger Scruton (despite its faults, the introductory book I learned most from. I judge it excellent.)
8. Oxford German Dictionary
9. Of No Country I know - David Ferry
10. Discrete Mathematical Structures - Kolman, Busby, Ross
11. Myths and Legends of the British Isles
12. The Song of Roland
13. Livy, Book one (BCP)
14. Plutarch's Lives (Dryden, tr.)
15. Cambridge Companion to Aristotle
16. A History of the Middle Ages - Joseph Dahmus
17. Collected Works of Plato
18. the Reasons of Love - Harry Frankfurt
19. Allusion and Intertext - Stephen Hinds
20. A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin (despite the recommends, a horrible book. got to p.30.)
21. And, of course, a notebook and at least one pencil, else I wouldn't have been able to make this list. One must have a notebook wherever one reads.

The second list is a bit longer, so I will place it under what you people call an "LJ cut." On the other hand, entries lacking these "cuts" are more likely to be commented on than those which have them. This second list is a partial inventory of "things," made in order to facilitate the reduction of my things to 100. It isn't quite finished but it almost is. It appears that my possessions mostly include books and pieces of papers (vae mihi, if I should have to inventory the contents of my file cabinet and every individual piece of paper on which I've written som valuable note!).

( Inventory )

Tags: life in general, stuff

Reading The Silmarillion was not wholly happy. At times I began to get depressed, but not because of the gravity of what I was reading. I kept thinking about my life during my middle-school years, probably because the last time I read the book was when I was in middle school.

When I was in middle school I didn't really have any friends. I was a very reclusive, quiet person who was physically incapable of talking to people most of the time, unless I knew them. It was pretty extreme, and probably a real psychological disorder. I'm still reserved around people when I first meet them, although I think I've morphed my persona into one of laid-back confidence. I come across to people as a very serious, determined and "together" person.

But anyway I had only one friend and spent most of my time just by myself, in my room, writing poetry or or stories or making up games. I was obsessed with Tolkien. At some point--and I can't remember how this happened--I started hanging out at a local gaming store called Pair-A-Dice. I saw a copy of a game called Middle-Earth Role Playing and was hooked. I bought it with my allowance, along with every MERP supplement I could get my hands on, and then started getting into Rolemaster as well (it was my favourite). My one friend knew some people starting up a game of Robotech* and I started playing with them. They all went to a different middle school, but my bus passed it and I'd get a note from my parents so that the bus driver would let me get off there. We played every Friday all through the seventh grade and beyond.

This resulted in the expansion of my social world! Gaming gave me a structured medium within which I could easily hang out with people. Before long I was hanging out at the game shop a lot, too. Saturdays were open gaming days. You paid a dollar for the right to sit at the table and play whatever game was being run that day. And back then, the place was always packed. There must have been 20-30 people there every week. Business was booming: the store relocated twice to a larger space.

Unfortunately, the two most popular games were GURPS and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Why was this unfortunate? Well, you know that Chick Publications Tract on D&D? This is a perfectly accurate representation of what my parents thought D&D was like. And soon enough they made the inference that MERP, Rolemaster and so on were the same kind of game as D&D. I remember my mom saying things like "it's not just a game," and "listen, don't let them fool you. There is no such thing as a good witch. They are all evil." I remember being totally confused by the latter. I mean, D&D is pretty clear on the dividing line between good and evil. I remember my dad telling me I couldn't go to the game store and "hang out with warlocks and devil-worshippers."

So the one place where I felt some comraderie with other people, the main social outlet for me during those years was cut off, and I was in Trouble and a Bad Child. For some people this might not be that big of a deal, but for me I think it was, given how hard it was for me to connect with people. The end result of it all is that I was denied any social life. And I am not exaggerating here. This sort of thing continued through high school.

I think the propensity towards being geeky/nerdy must have a genetic basis. I mean, I just gravitated towards that stuff. And I found a socal group where I felt a sense of comfort and belonging (okay, probably some nostalgia at work here and maybe some hyperbole, but still), but that was taken away. I feel like

You have no idea. I've spent YEARS afterwards trying to find a place where I "belonged" or to meet people who were "like me."

I can't believe how worked up I'm getting typing this. It probably isn't very coherent. I still have a lot to deal with when it comes to how my parents "raised" me.

Okay, I need to stop writing this. I want to write about the time in high school when I was assaulted by a teacher and my parents were just like, "what did you do? you're in trouble," but not now.

*I don't know why. I had never heard of Robotech, never saw the show, and as far as I recall none of the other players were into the whole Robotech thing either. But for some reason that is what we played.

Tags: gaming, life in general
Current Music: Sebadoh - Sexual Confusion

Date was awesome. It was a conversation date, and that means awesome. Things are definitely working, at least for now. I have to say I'm really into her; she's very interesting and unlike any other girl I've dated or been involved with, but to me that's refreshing.

I suppose I'm going to go home for a couple of days for Christmas, even though I actually don't want to. I want to stay here and work; I know for a fact that I won't be able to get anything done at home. My family really doesn't understand what I'm doing or what graduate school entails. My mother keeps referring to my thesis as a 'paper,' as in "I know you have to work on your paper, but you won't really be working on it, will you?" I already have chosen a very ambitious project for my thesis as it is. So there's not really any work space for me back home and I'm going to be interrupted every half hour, I'm sure. My mom actually thinks it's bizarre that anyone would sit and read for several hours at a time. Like, she thinks it's dysfunctional or deviant. I'm serious.

I'm really going home because I feel like I'm supposed to. But I know that I'm going to get depressed and I'm going to feel guilty for not getting work done.

Tags: dating, jessica, life in general

Had a block on my debit card--the bank was protecting me from fraud! O my! So I checked my account. I still have money. No unusual transactions. I haven't bought anything really big lately. Hm...so I get in touch with the fraud center and I'm on the phone for a while, lots of security questions. Then.."ok, we need to verify some transactions which have been flagged. So, jittery joes for a couple of bucks? espresso royale for like three bucks? a pizza? and a sandwich? oh and jittery joes again? those are good? ok. well, we were worried that your card was stolen. i mean, you got coffee twice on the same day."

Actually, what concerns me more is that while writing this just now I confused "you're" with "your." That shit is unacceptable. My command of English is fading...

Also, if ever someone says something to the effect that "x is awesome," and I happen to disagree, then I do not deny their claim. Rather, I reply, "I must be unclear on the meaning of 'awesome.'"

Tags: life in general

I thought I might use Livejournal more frequently, but I find that I'm still pretty attached to using a pen-and-paper journal. Oh well. I suppose I ought to at least post on things I'd like to discuss with other human beings over the internet.

At any rate, I'm pretty busy this semester: I'm studying three languages (German, Greek, and Latin). I am usually very tired by the end of the day, with so many words bouncing around madly in my brain. I'm apparently pretty good at this, though. I'm in second-year Greek, and I'm doing so well, that my professor invited me to sit in with the 3rd year class, and read with them.

I recently read The Historian. An NPR review accused the novel of being anti-intellectual, in that a consequence of scholarship is uncovering some great, dark evil. However, as I read the book I became more and more excited about living the life of a scholar; and I realised that, far from criticising "intellectualism," this novel actually glorifies it. Doing research is portrayed as a fun activity, not boring or evil.

To be sure, the life of a scholar does have its risks in the fictional world presented in the novel; but then, there are risks presented in espionage films and gangster films. Yet no one claims that "Mission Impossible" degrades spies or is an anti-espionage film. The possibility and presence of danger is what draws people to these films.

Tags: life in general, scholarship