What a sleeping beauty I was. Good lord. My sister Pat probably took that picture. Was I not wearing socks?
There are so many things to say about my twentieth year that this could get long. It wasn't a happy year & what happened that year meant I was going to be quite unhappy for many years to come.
But first. I had this experience in a kind of - what would you call it - it was a little box that was all mirrors. It feels like it was the first time I had ever really seen myself. & I was very fat & very ugly. So, I decided to do something about it. I basically starved myself for a few months. & I lost a great deal of weight. It was unusual because no one around me noticed or said a thing - but one of my roommates had a friend over & she was astonished - she hadn't seen me in a while - & that's when I knew I had lost weight.
There are so many things to say about my twentieth year that this could get long. It wasn't a happy year & what happened that year meant I was going to be quite unhappy for many years to come.
But first. I had this experience in a kind of - what would you call it - it was a little box that was all mirrors. It feels like it was the first time I had ever really seen myself. & I was very fat & very ugly. So, I decided to do something about it. I basically starved myself for a few months. & I lost a great deal of weight. It was unusual because no one around me noticed or said a thing - but one of my roommates had a friend over & she was astonished - she hadn't seen me in a while - & that's when I knew I had lost weight.
Over the years I'd gain it back but for the time being, I was a thinner - though not thin - person. & that probably helped me when I fell in love. The story is kinda dumb. I had a friend in an English class. I decided to get her a cake for her birthday. I went over to her house with one of my roommates. & I fell in love with my English class friend's roommate.
It's with some irony that I say that, on the drive home, I told my roommate that I think I was falling in love. He told me he didn't find the roommate the slightest bit attractive - which was fine by me because it me who was in love, not him. Why this is ironic will have to wait for my 1991 show.
Now, this fellow was someone I called my "best friend" but as I've mentioned before in previous installments he really wasn't a friend. He didn't like me much, he was openly contemptuous of actually, but I had grown up with family members treating me the same way so I didn't really notice. He had dropped out of college & moved back to Dallas, but when he wanted to return to Austin, I offered to let him stay in my walk-in closet. Later, when he & my other roommate got an apartment, I gave the rooms to them & I put sheets up in the living room & slept there. Why not get a three-bedroom apartment? My "best friend" couldn't afford it. Later that year, when I was consumed with schoolwork & with courting the girl I was in love with, he announced he was moving out. As did my other roommate. & they left me to deal with breaking the lease & all the other issues. I wish I could tell you that I was done with him at that point but nope! He would continue to be in my life & in fact he would play a pivotal role in utterly destroying it in just a few years but I would stay his friend doing nice things for him for years & years & years.
The other person who would destroy my life was the woman with whom I fell in love. She did not love me then, or ever really, although we'd start a relationship the next year. It's almost as though I willed the relationship into being, & there was enough codependence that she was dragged along, but she made it very clear from the beginning that she was never really that into me. Still, it happened. & looking back so many years I really, really wish it hadn't. I wish she had rejected me utterly.
Last night as I thought about writing all this I had so many stories that I thought this would be a novella. But the truth is, the stories are all the same, all sad. That drooling dope up there was mostly friendless & if he had met a friend who was supportive or kind, not jealous & resentful, he would have thought the person a fool. It just wasn't really how I'd been taught or shown to see the world.
But this is a nice memory. I fell in love with one of my teachers. This is a thing about me - I love people who are passionate. The teacher taught a course I absolutely hated - the English novel in the 18th century - I can't believe I made it through books like Pamela or Moll Flanders. & it was hard to do that, as I was spending all my time with this woman. But gosh that teacher loved her subject & I would just sit in her class with little hearts bubbling above my head as she lectured. She was great.
At the end of the semester I went to her & told her I was utterly unprepared for her final because my head & heart were being consumed by this courtship & she told me she would not give me an incomplete but she would let me come in to take the test later. Which I did, alone in a classroom. & I think I even got an A!
Years later, when I worked at UT, in a department where we helped professors in the College Of Liberal Arts with instructional technology, she called me & asked me about the services. She said my full name but she didn't seem to remember me. Which kinda broke my heart at the time. But I didn't say a thing.
Anyway, who cares about me, the music of 1988 was extraordinary & there's too much for just one show. I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow.
It's with some irony that I say that, on the drive home, I told my roommate that I think I was falling in love. He told me he didn't find the roommate the slightest bit attractive - which was fine by me because it me who was in love, not him. Why this is ironic will have to wait for my 1991 show.
Now, this fellow was someone I called my "best friend" but as I've mentioned before in previous installments he really wasn't a friend. He didn't like me much, he was openly contemptuous of actually, but I had grown up with family members treating me the same way so I didn't really notice. He had dropped out of college & moved back to Dallas, but when he wanted to return to Austin, I offered to let him stay in my walk-in closet. Later, when he & my other roommate got an apartment, I gave the rooms to them & I put sheets up in the living room & slept there. Why not get a three-bedroom apartment? My "best friend" couldn't afford it. Later that year, when I was consumed with schoolwork & with courting the girl I was in love with, he announced he was moving out. As did my other roommate. & they left me to deal with breaking the lease & all the other issues. I wish I could tell you that I was done with him at that point but nope! He would continue to be in my life & in fact he would play a pivotal role in utterly destroying it in just a few years but I would stay his friend doing nice things for him for years & years & years.
The other person who would destroy my life was the woman with whom I fell in love. She did not love me then, or ever really, although we'd start a relationship the next year. It's almost as though I willed the relationship into being, & there was enough codependence that she was dragged along, but she made it very clear from the beginning that she was never really that into me. Still, it happened. & looking back so many years I really, really wish it hadn't. I wish she had rejected me utterly.
Last night as I thought about writing all this I had so many stories that I thought this would be a novella. But the truth is, the stories are all the same, all sad. That drooling dope up there was mostly friendless & if he had met a friend who was supportive or kind, not jealous & resentful, he would have thought the person a fool. It just wasn't really how I'd been taught or shown to see the world.
But this is a nice memory. I fell in love with one of my teachers. This is a thing about me - I love people who are passionate. The teacher taught a course I absolutely hated - the English novel in the 18th century - I can't believe I made it through books like Pamela or Moll Flanders. & it was hard to do that, as I was spending all my time with this woman. But gosh that teacher loved her subject & I would just sit in her class with little hearts bubbling above my head as she lectured. She was great.
At the end of the semester I went to her & told her I was utterly unprepared for her final because my head & heart were being consumed by this courtship & she told me she would not give me an incomplete but she would let me come in to take the test later. Which I did, alone in a classroom. & I think I even got an A!
Years later, when I worked at UT, in a department where we helped professors in the College Of Liberal Arts with instructional technology, she called me & asked me about the services. She said my full name but she didn't seem to remember me. Which kinda broke my heart at the time. But I didn't say a thing.
Anyway, who cares about me, the music of 1988 was extraordinary & there's too much for just one show. I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow.
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