Childhood Stories
Shaleen. It doesn't matter what her last name is, as I could never spell it as a kid and I certainly don't remember how to spell it now. One of those weird long Russian-sounding names. I could probably dig through my closet and find one of my grade school yearbooks and figure out the spelling and look her up on Facebook, though I'm certain she's married with a new last ...
Toby is a sacred word in my family. The mere mention of Toby around me, my sister, my father, or my late mother means getting an hour's worth of stories without prompt. Toby was more than just our dog. Toby was our security detail, our nanny, our unspecified family member, and a representation of all that was good in our family. ...
(if you missed Part 1, you're gonna be confused) The conditions of my suspension were that I would be held accountable for all missed schoolwork, which I was to turn in upon my return to school. To facilitate this, my mom would swing by the school every few days and pick up assignments from my teachers. Because my mom was busy running classes of her own, there was no ...
I realize that, reading through some of these stories of my younger self, it might come off like I've been trying absolve myself of guilt and that I just conveniently "didn't know any better" when it came to the ability to fly, or nazi history, or semi-adult stories spit out from a vending machine, or things like that. I promise I'm just that dumb. Or, at best, ...
Growing up, I never recall the "girls have cooties" feeling. Even in preschool, I'd try have my "nap time" near a cute girl in the class. I'm not sure if -- in actuality -- no one thought "girls have cooties", and just pretended to think that so they weren't ridiculed. Which is what I did - fake it, keep up appearances, hide in plain sight. In 4th grade, there was this ...
When I was a kid playing little league baseball, we didn't have all the fancy things like "attention", and "genuine public interest", and certainly not daytime EPSN coverage. Even if your team made it to some kind of top-of-the-heap situation, you were just the best team that year amongst the teams and parents who gave a shit. I genuinely don't remember a single year of playing baseball where anyone ...
I've mentioned, many times before, that my mom was not only a middle-school Drama teacher but that she also helped run a summer youth drama camp. The name of the camp (or is it "company" cause it's, like, play related?) was "Greasepaint", and it was founded by -- and predominantly run by -- a lady named Wendy. I just Googled "greasepaint phoenix wendy" and, sure enough, I had the right ...
One of my closest friends in 3rd grade became my hero for many years. I looked up to him, and he was the shining example of how to be a cool person. Even when we did nerdy things, like programming videogames, or playing D&D (he was also our Dungeon Master), he was cool and genuine and just a kind-hearted badass. I'll refer to him as Keith for these stories, ...
My sister is three years older than me. Much to her chagrin while growing up, she didn't have any sisters. But, she had a younger brother who looked up to her that she could torment, and a father who wanted his son to be a masculine man of sports and manly shit. Being the deviant genius she was, she used all these elements to have fun in her own ...