Blood inside
I had a bowl of soup in here, and was leaning back in my chair and sipping it. It was mushroom, and I had heated it in the microwave, but it tasted so good that I wanted to keel over. It was probably all the salt in the soup that made me want to keel over, but I've always befriended mushrooms. From a young age, I noticed that mushrooms were the only thing that my brother wouldn't eat, and I felt bad for the neglected food.
I was enjoying my soup, and the computer, when the cat leapt onto the desk. He stared intently at me, and started his purring and rasping routine. He was very interested in my soup. You can tell when he's interested in something because he begins to sniff excitedly. He leaned into me and my soup, and began to paw at it. I decided I didn't want cat paws in my soup, so I walked away quietly.
I love having people take interest in me. If there was anything about snapping at my history teacher that I liked more than my quick tongue, it was having other people notice me. I became a topic of debate, I became something people thought about and wondered about. People asked me, "What did you say to him out in the hall?" and I would tell my story, (best as I could remember, that is) and I relished it.
I think I've been brainwashed into thinking being happy with yourself, what you've made on your own, is a sign that you're so self satisfied that you're just gonna bed down and eat for the rest of your life because you've already done well once. I had a sense that it was a very bad and unlucky thing to say "This is good work," that it would jinx myself and I would be sent to a doom particularly prepared for those of us heady on our own arrogance.
That's exactly what I was fearing: doom and oblivion if I acknowledged that I had written a decent term paper. The entire time I was working on the paper, I was suppressing the urge to say "This is really good." And the paper was really good, or at least, it was really good for me at this point and time. That doesn't mean I'm contented with myself, or that I'm going to quit writing because I succeeded once. I'm contented with this one paper, and that doesn't mean I'm contented with my writing as a whole.
I couldn't bring myself to look at this paper after I had handed it in. I couldn't show it to anyone after Foster had said "You seem like you're trying too hard to be artsy." I was terrified when my English teacher announced that the papers were "OK", not great, not spectacular, not excellent, not even Very Good. Every fear that I had felt during the writing of the paper, and some others that I didn't know existed, resurfaced. I didn't talk about the Tempest enough. I ran out of steam. I opened up myself only to receive wounds. It was an awful feeling, my sturdy assurance that I had written good work was pulled out from under me.
It was a good paper until there was a hint that other people didn't think it was too great. It was a good paper until other people had to take interest in it. And it couldn't be a good paper again until my English teacher showed interest in it. She showed an awful lot of interest in it. She thought it was excellent. I almost started crying.
"Did you think it was good?" she asked. "I was so nervous..." I trailed off. "But did you think your paper was good?" It matters nothing what she thinks, it's what I think. I forget sometimes. "I thought it was either really excellent or really awful and completely off the mark. Certainly not mediocre," I said. "It was excellent," she said. On my grading sheet, she wrote that it was my best writing, my best insight, my best me. I believed her, then, but it nagged me that I had let self doubt gnaw at me.
It just feels so wrong to say "I like it," because everywhere around you, people are trying to convince you not to, trying to chip away at any confidence they catch sight of. It's something so coveted, so precious, so deathly important, people hate to see it in anyone but themselves. And so it becomes second nature to hide it, it's second nature not to acknowledge it, because that opens you up for abuse.
You, readers in general, readers in specific, anyone who happens across me and my journal, can read my paper. I'm not sure if I wouldn't let you if my English teacher hadn't liked it, but it's hard to speculate about things like that.
I don't even know how many of you will even find this interesting or not; it's long, and it's personal, and it's about photography and King Lear.
I forget what my cat and my soup had to do with this.
Oh, just a few more things. Currently for English I'm writing a set of ten memoirs of my life to date. They're based on The House on Mango Street, and they're terribly hard to write. I'm toying with the idea of posting them here as I finish them, or posting all ten in rapid fire. I can't decide what I want to do with them. I'm just giving warning, though, that this is what I'm planning.
Notes on my last entry (I'd link it but it's just one back and I forget it's number): I talked to my therapist an awful lot about the fight I had with my teacher. She asked me if I would do it again, if I were truly remorseful. I thought about it for a while. I didn't say this to her, but I think I would now. I don't think that being as openly contemptuous as I was is a good thing, but I still don't believe that necessitates just taking it. There has to be middle ground here, and I intend to take it. There needs to be a refinement to the rebellion. The way I buck the system needs to be finessed and made precise.
It's raining, cold and pouring, and everything feels so clammy.
Crew ended on Saturday, and I meant to write a summation entry, but I realized that crew didn't really warrant this. By the end of the season, it had lost it's all important status in my heart and mind. I dreaded practice, because of the monotony and the heat. I have a very short attention span by this point in the year.
I graduate on the 19th. I have exactly a week left of high school classes, and then exams. I don't know if I'll write again before I graduate, because exams are such an incredible drain on me, but if you feel like sending me any presents, I'm sure something could be arranged. Film would be especially appreciated, as I ruined two rolls of film because I am so incredibly ignorant of what to do with a camera.
Sometimes I just feel so caught up in the temporal that I forget to think about whatever is going on inside me. Since this journal is determined nearly wholly by what is going on inside me, I neglect this journal. Oh, how tempting it is to sink into mediocrity. Well, it's about as tempting as a lukewarm bath.
I like presents... but I like email more
2000-06-06, Confidence woes, stuff.
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