Tango du Mort in Book One: The Not So Daily Briefs 2014

(1)a- I am a strong advocate for Mental Health Care and Mental Health Care causes; so I realize in advance that what I am about to say is not only potentially offensive, but categorically inaccurate. That being said- please forgive this tiny indulgence:

I am beginning to envy the Insane and Criminal. This week in court we’ve seen a parade of individuals who simply don’t give a fuck. Even more, around the city I’ve seen an absolute salmagundi of people quite literally treating one another like garbage because… fuck it, why should anyone else be more important than I? And here’s the messed up thing- I am starting to envy their ability for such dickery. I am feeling ever more constrained by my personal dedication to self-control. Keeping my anger in-check? It is a difficult exhaustive and taxing experience. Making sure I don’t act out on violent, sexual, or simply rude impulses is a constant task and sometimes I really do wish I could simply let go.... I know I never will because I am extraordinarily socialized… I was brought up with British etiquette and an eye on keeping things socially acceptable at all times… but feeling free sounds nice sometimes.

(1)b- I don’t know if this sounds bad or not… I don’t want this to be a pity thing… this is just something I’ve realized as fact lately. I am so dedicated to honor (what it means, what it is, how it is expressed) that I stand by my promises. Which is why, no matter what, I honestly can’t see myself ever leaving my wife. I made a promise, a vow in the most literal sense, and I can’t abandon that. It wasn’t a conditional promise, it was a promise. I just… can’t see myself ever thinking differently about that.

(2)a- This part of the project will be tame by comparison to later editions. The older I got, the more life I experienced, the more I regret doing/not doing. So this part, just looking into my 8th Grade transition to 9th Grade… surprisingly tame.

(2)b- The Washington D.C. trip was a great deal of fun and, despite a few of the chaperones being on “anyone makes a joke and I’ll destroy you” mode- things were A-Okay-hunky dory. There are, however, a things that I would have changed. Some of them, inevitably, because of a girl… some of them, unfortunately, because they became habits that would crop up in later trips of similar type.

The non-girl things I’ll cover first as they are likely less scintillating. Firstly, due to typical Teenaged Boy issues- despite 4 boys to a hotel room, there were only two beds. Since I was raised on a natural “self-sacrifice is a fast track to honor and respect” mindset… I refused a bed the entire trip. It isn’t a big deal; but I think changing this slight moment would have given me more experience and more comfort in discovering the line between “unreasonable demands” and “standing up for oneself.” 2 of my 3 roomies were even friends of mine, so it wouldn’t have been a big deal, either. I simply… wanted to do what I thought was honorable and would make my friends think better of me. The BIG non-girl thing, though, is a habit that lasted me on EVERY trip I took in High School and it is a habit I somewhat wish I hadn’t developed. I would spend a considerable amount of time whenever in transit writing in a small notebook about the trip, the people, etcetera. It was like Junior Reporter but if that reporter had no training, evident bias, and also spent time writing songs and poems. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with self-expression or anything… it just… writing volumes around other students- not a good way to earn friends or respect and… keeping my head buried in a notebook was not a good way to create friendships.

The girl thing? I’ll drop any pretenses of code names or anything as the process would get complicated quickly. Anyway, the girl that I was hung up on was Jennifer A. This Washington trip, you see, combined the two Junior High Schools of our area and so I was meeting boys and girls I’d never seen before. One of them was Jennifer A. She was short(ish), very athletic with long(ish) blonde hair almost always kept in a ponytail. She looked the perfect image of one of those suburban white girls that excels in HS Soccer, Softball or Volleyball. I spent a great deal of my time in the trip trying to get to know her, trying to be friends with her, trying to see if there was a possibility of more than friends. With hindsight in place… I never would have done that. I learned (much later) that she was “one of those girls.” She wanted attention from guys but the only guys she would even so much as genuinely befriend were the less intelligent, more muscular guys that exuded masculinity and machismo. As I was a sensitive theater-type… she strung me along because she liked the attention. She didn’t even intend on being my friend. This gets to me because I wasted a lot of time and opportunities on that trip that I could have used trying to make ACTUAL friends.

Finally, one of the big things I’d change that is largely connected to Jen… Busch Gardens. We all got to enjoy an amusement park while visiting the Nation’s Capital and there weren’t enough chaperones to supervise us all. So my roomies and Jen and her friends were our own little group. Of course this thrilled me. I have ALWAYS wanted to be “the guy at the amusement park with an attractive girl”.... though, in my imagination that attractive girl was my girlfriend or at least reciprocated my interest. We were getting close to time to get back to the bus and I was to lead the way back. We took a wrong turn and I got us a bit lost… but I did find a map kiosk that I was walking towards. WHEN SUDDENLY- Jen said “Ugh, leave it to a man to not ask for directions.” As this was towards the end of the trip- I had already begun to pick up on the vibe that she was only interested in “men” so I took this complaint as a direct challenge. IF I asked for directions, I was diminishing my manliness and would lose standing. So we kept trying to find our way back… it took far too long. INSTEAD- if I still got in that predicament I should have said “Jen- if you know where to go, feel free to lead. Otherwise, I’m going to grab this map, check it for our location, and get us to the bus. I don’t want to hear anything else from anyone unless you know where to go and have a faster way to get there.”

Last updated September 24, 2014