mr... i don't remember the name.
he was an english teacher, taught beowulf. was jewish. old. fat. bald. white.
anyway, he'd fuckin teach speach? mr. romeo. and like the kids'd look up to the dude. he was a hardass. he'd talk about stuff like beowulf and all that. the kids'd kinda like... well i dunno. for some reason i liked him. he seemed almost as much of a hardass as i felt. i guess i could relate to him. and like, the beowulf shit, i got into it, like i could identify with it and it meant quite a bit to me.
but yeah i ahd this show a guitar thing recital i guess it was a senior recital all kids did one senior year well if tey wanted. i did, guitar, and like... well the dude "missed it". it was fucking rediculous because like i ahd the entire school doing a standing ovation and the guy was like... oh... when i mentioned it to him totally burst my bubble like oh i never heard of that must've not been that big of a deal hah which is like fuckin nuts. but yeah the dude sucked. and i certainly fuckin didn't like how he operated because i was one of those kids who desperately needed some of the attention he was giving to the other kids. jews favoring jews im thinking.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
how much you miss england
i guess you could say i miss england. i moved here when i was like 10. i was born in 86, and in 96, i was here. maybe like 9, when we first visited, in 95. but yeah. i visited as often as i could. once whe i was 17 with my dad. we saw the old house. we'd still kept it by then. they sold it after.
i've gone back a few times since then, i visited in 08 when i was 22, and perhaps in 07 when i was 21. two or three times between 07 and 08. i've seen the old town where i used to live, blackburn, through the eyes of a visitor this time, by train, to the station, and then by cab, to some hotel. it was weird.
i spent a month in aberdeen. it was great.
but when i returned to ohio it sucked, nothing here, just feeling like i'd been cheated, like id' been moved from england without really any good reason and it sucked. like i just wanted to go bakc. i have no reason to be here after all. whilst my parents made the decision to come here so long ago, i didn't agree with that decision and was taken against my will. the trouble with being a child is you're reduced to being little more than a slave at times, and the law supports it. such is the way people live when they're considered a dependant.
but so many years have passed, miserable years, and after disconnecting myself with so many of those people that i met over the years under ugly circumstances, i find myself still connected with a few of the originals, people i knew before the blight in my life began. and using these oflks, i've managed to piece together a thing or two about my former country.
i grew up there, most of my best friends lived there, the best chance i had at a normal life died there. thats more or less my tie to that country. its the home of my childhood, and also the place where i feel like i belong. being there i feel like im at peace. for some reason it makes me feel complete in some way. i dont know why.
i've gone back a few times since then, i visited in 08 when i was 22, and perhaps in 07 when i was 21. two or three times between 07 and 08. i've seen the old town where i used to live, blackburn, through the eyes of a visitor this time, by train, to the station, and then by cab, to some hotel. it was weird.
i spent a month in aberdeen. it was great.
but when i returned to ohio it sucked, nothing here, just feeling like i'd been cheated, like id' been moved from england without really any good reason and it sucked. like i just wanted to go bakc. i have no reason to be here after all. whilst my parents made the decision to come here so long ago, i didn't agree with that decision and was taken against my will. the trouble with being a child is you're reduced to being little more than a slave at times, and the law supports it. such is the way people live when they're considered a dependant.
but so many years have passed, miserable years, and after disconnecting myself with so many of those people that i met over the years under ugly circumstances, i find myself still connected with a few of the originals, people i knew before the blight in my life began. and using these oflks, i've managed to piece together a thing or two about my former country.
i grew up there, most of my best friends lived there, the best chance i had at a normal life died there. thats more or less my tie to that country. its the home of my childhood, and also the place where i feel like i belong. being there i feel like im at peace. for some reason it makes me feel complete in some way. i dont know why.
being stared at all the time
the stares were something i didnt really notice until september 11th 2001 when i'd walk into a mall and get all sorts of looks from all sorts of people. it was strange, stranger still when i saw the fear in the eyes of the people doing the staring. quite crazy.
then when anita and i came down here, and like, i guess a few days ago, in the mall, we'd sit, and people'd glance over, nearly every one of them, as they walked past. some more than others. in an irish pub one particular woman stared at anita. it was strange. but anita stared back, eventually moved her chair over to face teh woman, and surprisingly she stopped.
then when anita and i came down here, and like, i guess a few days ago, in the mall, we'd sit, and people'd glance over, nearly every one of them, as they walked past. some more than others. in an irish pub one particular woman stared at anita. it was strange. but anita stared back, eventually moved her chair over to face teh woman, and surprisingly she stopped.
being picked on in school
black kids beating me up in the back of the bus in Chicago. just a few scuffles, pushing and the like. never anything too bad. then in ohio name calling. Squanto. all sorts of stares. questions about my religion, where i was from, what i believed, where my parents were from, all that. asking a girl out and having the entire school giving me a hard time about it.
then in highschool having people make fun of me behind my back. my differences had grown beyond my skin color, and my putka, i was also now emotionally crippled and scared to be myself in front of anyone. this was the result of the abuse brought about by having an uncommon skin color for the region and an uncommon head covering for the region. people wuold respond with stares, perhaps it would scale up from there to comments, or even beyond that to fights and name calling. some comments were questions. some asked about all parts of me. others were just jokes at my expense. cruel jokes that highlighted my differences visible or otherwise and brought others amusement to others while remind themselves of these.
in college i wasnt really accepted amongst the more popular children, clearly being ostracized perhaps because i seemed like i didn't really even want to be around those other children. having long since been sucked in by kirby and his friends i kept to their cluster and never strayed much.
after i moved home and then back and began a relationship with anita. 140 days strong. you could say i began anew.
then in highschool having people make fun of me behind my back. my differences had grown beyond my skin color, and my putka, i was also now emotionally crippled and scared to be myself in front of anyone. this was the result of the abuse brought about by having an uncommon skin color for the region and an uncommon head covering for the region. people wuold respond with stares, perhaps it would scale up from there to comments, or even beyond that to fights and name calling. some comments were questions. some asked about all parts of me. others were just jokes at my expense. cruel jokes that highlighted my differences visible or otherwise and brought others amusement to others while remind themselves of these.
in college i wasnt really accepted amongst the more popular children, clearly being ostracized perhaps because i seemed like i didn't really even want to be around those other children. having long since been sucked in by kirby and his friends i kept to their cluster and never strayed much.
after i moved home and then back and began a relationship with anita. 140 days strong. you could say i began anew.
being locked up inside of a basment
star trek episodes on an old television and old anatomy books in black and white. a treadmill and a table with corners. a strange woven plastic - thing. the laundry room, with soda. the bedroom. the bathroom.
this was the basement of my aunt jasbir. kindof a crazy place. the anatomy books were gruesom as hel llike depicting babies that were malformed and born with deformaties and shit. mostly all were born dead. then there were all the weird things that happen to people, like the growths, and stuff like that. all freakshow stuff. then there was the star trek: next generation. it'd come on tv, on UPN "power 50". i still remember that. my aunt'd make roti's for us that had potato in them. and for darsheel she'd make cheese roti. my sister rolled down the stairs once into the basement, i was blamed for it. there were tons of books on teh shelves but the only ones i looked into were the anatomy ones. there was a treadmill but im not sure i ever really bothered getting onto it.
this was the basement of my aunt jasbir. kindof a crazy place. the anatomy books were gruesom as hel llike depicting babies that were malformed and born with deformaties and shit. mostly all were born dead. then there were all the weird things that happen to people, like the growths, and stuff like that. all freakshow stuff. then there was the star trek: next generation. it'd come on tv, on UPN "power 50". i still remember that. my aunt'd make roti's for us that had potato in them. and for darsheel she'd make cheese roti. my sister rolled down the stairs once into the basement, i was blamed for it. there were tons of books on teh shelves but the only ones i looked into were the anatomy ones. there was a treadmill but im not sure i ever really bothered getting onto it.
Friday, March 20, 2009
basically raising your little sister
well my mom would be out at her work, my dad'd be out overseas in england, and i was home alone with my ssiter. we'd watch tv shows, like star trek and shit. once she rolled down the stairs, whilst being at home in my aunt jasbir's place and my aunts both gave me a hard time about not being responsible. i was watching tv, and i think i was no more than like, 6 or so, yet i was being asked to be responsible for my ssiter. that was rediculous. she was barely old enough to talk, and i was basically just horrified by their anatomy books, bored as hell in their basement, and engrossing in my first reruns of star trek the next generation. it may have even been running live at that point. otherwise, beyond that, that was my life, as well as maybe playing with the ants in the yard.
or more like your aunt
my aunt was called jasbir, the other ranbir. one married, the other not. jasbir was a college professor at malcolm x, so was ranbir. jasbir was more successfull, with a husband, house, and apartments she rented. she owned an oldsmobile, one that we were given eventually. she'd wear sari's alot. both jasbir and ranbir had foot problems like my mom. she had foot issues and had surgery. only it went wrong, and she had blood clots. they traveled upwards and surgery was done to keep them from going all around her body. to the lungs, heart, brain and all that. so she's recovering now. but apparently she thought she had the same thing, but really didnt.
anyhow, ranbir was divorced, twice married, and lived in an apartment, kinda small, two story with a basmment, drove a honda, and lived alone. she married whilst we were there, and divorced soon after. she was kinda strict, and kinda argumentative. perhaps a little bitter. a bit like peter's father in family guy, all conservative, and then at odd moments sentimental and loving. it was strange, but i never really accepted her the way she wanted to be, for me it was just utterly weird and i just hated it.
i used to watch seaquest and ... what was the show... the cosby show up in her bedroom and shit.
anyhow, ranbir was divorced, twice married, and lived in an apartment, kinda small, two story with a basmment, drove a honda, and lived alone. she married whilst we were there, and divorced soon after. she was kinda strict, and kinda argumentative. perhaps a little bitter. a bit like peter's father in family guy, all conservative, and then at odd moments sentimental and loving. it was strange, but i never really accepted her the way she wanted to be, for me it was just utterly weird and i just hated it.
i used to watch seaquest and ... what was the show... the cosby show up in her bedroom and shit.
your aunts house
the place was interesting, upstairs there were couches and a kitchen, the door was weshed with metal wire and the garden had a border that had a gap between the concrete and dirt the yard in the back was small and the garage full of junk the bedrooms were sread a room for the guru granth and a color coded set of bathrooms silk sofas and a tv with tons of channels we'd watch benji there looking through the window outside.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
dealing with the kids in chicago
gordy is the name i remember msot from my chicago days. i went to two schools there, one for a short while, and another for a good long while. i think i spent a total of two years in chicago, or should i say, skokie schools. the schools weer in a place called evanston so im told. we lived at the time with my aunt, then my other, then our own place. the schools are a vague memory to me. i do remember watching a solar eclipse. besides that, there isn't much as far as memories go
i do remember there was a large field, thati was on, covered with snow, and on a far end of this field was a museum of sorts, or some sort of building of interest at any rate, perhaps an art museum, or something fo that sort, where our teacher led us to. I remeber the library where there were a great many tintin books i'd love to read.
this also more or less spills over into england where i used to love going to the library and picking up asterix and obelix comics. and then over in chicago i'd go to the public library and get comics from their section. can you believe they actually had a comic section. i remember the front of the library vaguely. our uncle used to give us candies and the like, toffees. he used to work in a... architectural firm im not sure of his position but he had a table with the tools and apparently was isntrumental in the design for the local gurudwara.
but the kids, gordy was a kid whom i had a video of. the kid made it in grade school. i remember finding a copy of it amongst the rubble of my basement ;p.
i do remember there was a large field, thati was on, covered with snow, and on a far end of this field was a museum of sorts, or some sort of building of interest at any rate, perhaps an art museum, or something fo that sort, where our teacher led us to. I remeber the library where there were a great many tintin books i'd love to read.
this also more or less spills over into england where i used to love going to the library and picking up asterix and obelix comics. and then over in chicago i'd go to the public library and get comics from their section. can you believe they actually had a comic section. i remember the front of the library vaguely. our uncle used to give us candies and the like, toffees. he used to work in a... architectural firm im not sure of his position but he had a table with the tools and apparently was isntrumental in the design for the local gurudwara.
but the kids, gordy was a kid whom i had a video of. the kid made it in grade school. i remember finding a copy of it amongst the rubble of my basement ;p.
moving to america 1
so we moved to america, from england. the year i'm told was 1995. perhaps even 1996. but the story was, my folks were living with me and my sister in a place called blackburn lancashire in england, a place in there called beardwood park, in a cul de sac, down the road from my friend sammy and neena's.
so at the time i was goign to a school called Queen Elizabeth's Grammer School. It was a uniformed school, and apparently over 600 years old. the grounds sure looked it, not for lack of being taken care of, but more in the sense that the old stone looked aged, and the hall where we dined was more like a churc. there were hymns too, ever morning we'd take our yellow prayer books and sing our hymns. I remember it being yellow having found a copy of one years later. I also found an old swimming cap, in my old bedroom, when i visted the old house when i was seventeen, with my father, in my old cupboard, and on the windows were my old thomas the tank engine curtains.
these are the sorts of things you come across when you visit home after many years.
but back to the move, we moved quite suddenly. i didn't get much warning, i'm not sure iw as told more than once, andi don't think it ever really registered that most of those people i was never going to see again. so it came as sort of a sad shock to me that when we arrived in chicago things weren't quite as good as they had been in england. no more green trees, old schools, and friendly friends. gone were the old farms and our cozy cul de sac. and gone were my friends whom some i'd known since age 2, other who'd known me since birth. this was the cradle of my childhood, and it was gone, forever to be warped and damaged, never to be quite as good as it once was.
we moved to chicago, to a suburb in chicago to be precise, a place called skokie, and this is where we lived, first among one aunt, and then another, then finally with a place of our own. eventually so im told i returned to england and my sister and mother reminaed, so i was away from half my family for a year or more.
after chicago's jaunt, and the england return, there was but one major move left, from england to ohio - this would be my home for the next forteen years at it happened, though i'd never have guessed it at the time. we moved by car, my uncles old oldsmobile, from chicago, out to ohio. first in a hotel, econo lodge, then in an apartment, stonebridge, and finally a house, colonial drive. these were all moves made towards getting settled in ohio. i went through a variety of schools whist there, main for two weeks, fairbrook for two years, ankeney for one, mvs for five. again working on getting settled, only it took me a good through years before i finally did get somewhat settled in.
however three years wasn't enough time to undo the damage done in the moves prior, and i remained a quiet child, whislt having been quite the contrary overseas. i had lost too much, and not gained back enough to be what i once was.
so at the time i was goign to a school called Queen Elizabeth's Grammer School. It was a uniformed school, and apparently over 600 years old. the grounds sure looked it, not for lack of being taken care of, but more in the sense that the old stone looked aged, and the hall where we dined was more like a churc. there were hymns too, ever morning we'd take our yellow prayer books and sing our hymns. I remember it being yellow having found a copy of one years later. I also found an old swimming cap, in my old bedroom, when i visted the old house when i was seventeen, with my father, in my old cupboard, and on the windows were my old thomas the tank engine curtains.
these are the sorts of things you come across when you visit home after many years.
but back to the move, we moved quite suddenly. i didn't get much warning, i'm not sure iw as told more than once, andi don't think it ever really registered that most of those people i was never going to see again. so it came as sort of a sad shock to me that when we arrived in chicago things weren't quite as good as they had been in england. no more green trees, old schools, and friendly friends. gone were the old farms and our cozy cul de sac. and gone were my friends whom some i'd known since age 2, other who'd known me since birth. this was the cradle of my childhood, and it was gone, forever to be warped and damaged, never to be quite as good as it once was.
we moved to chicago, to a suburb in chicago to be precise, a place called skokie, and this is where we lived, first among one aunt, and then another, then finally with a place of our own. eventually so im told i returned to england and my sister and mother reminaed, so i was away from half my family for a year or more.
after chicago's jaunt, and the england return, there was but one major move left, from england to ohio - this would be my home for the next forteen years at it happened, though i'd never have guessed it at the time. we moved by car, my uncles old oldsmobile, from chicago, out to ohio. first in a hotel, econo lodge, then in an apartment, stonebridge, and finally a house, colonial drive. these were all moves made towards getting settled in ohio. i went through a variety of schools whist there, main for two weeks, fairbrook for two years, ankeney for one, mvs for five. again working on getting settled, only it took me a good through years before i finally did get somewhat settled in.
however three years wasn't enough time to undo the damage done in the moves prior, and i remained a quiet child, whislt having been quite the contrary overseas. i had lost too much, and not gained back enough to be what i once was.
subjects:
things that i should be writing about:
movin to america
dealing with the kids in chicago
your aunts house
or more like your aunt
basically raising your little sister
being locked up inside of a basment
being picked on in school
being stared at all the time
how much you miss england
how that one teacher would treat other kids like uh, like he wuold get excited for other kids and then when you go and do something like a performance he would go oh i must've not and gone and seen it, or something like that
the support that you didn't get
how your parents are psychiatrists, but yet they help other kids instead of their own
how you were left on concrete by a friend
how your friends completely like, left you when a good friend of yours passed away
how noones helped you get through this
not even your parents
how people avoid the topic
the reaction of your dead friends mom
the situation between you lauren and damien
how your parents prevent you from going to boston
how lauren used you after vivek died
how lauren gave heroin to vivek in the first place
how she uses drugs to get what she wants
people at the open mics, like, at andymans how he's always like, he's different.
how people view you just by your skin color
how it was during the 9/11
how people bring racism into video games
how people are making kids pay for the pirate bay thing
i guess how many problems i have that i guess im pulling you into
and my little btich fits
how i can't really accept anything that i do wrong or rediculous
how your parents um are kinda still dealing with racism from like thirty years ago
how you were basically taught how to i guess avoid people by not being allowed to bring anybody over - well more like... just because of how your parents reacted to new people, you not wanting to bring anybody over
how your parents react to new things
how your parents come down here and clean the basement whenever we leave
how people treat you differently compared to how tey treat me like at chipotle and kinkos
how people are so conservative
how people compare you to themselves
how lazy people are
how discouraging people are
how we're still here in dayton in your parents basement
how your sister asked youf or 200 dollars for her birthday and got pissed off when you said no after her parents said no
how you've never gotten a paying gig, even though you've been playing music for like ever
movin to america
dealing with the kids in chicago
your aunts house
or more like your aunt
basically raising your little sister
being locked up inside of a basment
being picked on in school
being stared at all the time
how much you miss england
how that one teacher would treat other kids like uh, like he wuold get excited for other kids and then when you go and do something like a performance he would go oh i must've not and gone and seen it, or something like that
the support that you didn't get
how your parents are psychiatrists, but yet they help other kids instead of their own
how you were left on concrete by a friend
how your friends completely like, left you when a good friend of yours passed away
how noones helped you get through this
not even your parents
how people avoid the topic
the reaction of your dead friends mom
the situation between you lauren and damien
how your parents prevent you from going to boston
how lauren used you after vivek died
how lauren gave heroin to vivek in the first place
how she uses drugs to get what she wants
people at the open mics, like, at andymans how he's always like, he's different.
how people view you just by your skin color
how it was during the 9/11
how people bring racism into video games
how people are making kids pay for the pirate bay thing
i guess how many problems i have that i guess im pulling you into
and my little btich fits
how i can't really accept anything that i do wrong or rediculous
how your parents um are kinda still dealing with racism from like thirty years ago
how you were basically taught how to i guess avoid people by not being allowed to bring anybody over - well more like... just because of how your parents reacted to new people, you not wanting to bring anybody over
how your parents react to new things
how your parents come down here and clean the basement whenever we leave
how people treat you differently compared to how tey treat me like at chipotle and kinkos
how people are so conservative
how people compare you to themselves
how lazy people are
how discouraging people are
how we're still here in dayton in your parents basement
how your sister asked youf or 200 dollars for her birthday and got pissed off when you said no after her parents said no
how you've never gotten a paying gig, even though you've been playing music for like ever
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