Unmitigated

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Room 234

I don't know what got me started thinking about Room 234, but it popped into my mind one day last week and I've been thinking of it ever since.

Like every other kid, I started high school feeling like I didn't belong. As Louisa Alcott so aptly stated it, I went through life with my elbows out, pushing and irritating my way through. Life changed when I found Room 234.

One day, I sat in class with two guys I was classroom pals with. You know the type. Crab about the teacher together, wave in the lunch room, but that's as far as it goes. Until I heard them saying lines from something, and I knew it wasn't time for the school play yet.

Did I mention this was the start of my senior year? Yeah. Late bloomer, here.

Anyway, they were saying these lines, and I asked what they were talking about, these two sophomores. "We are in a multiple together," one of them told me. WTF?

Turns out a "multiple" was a multiple reading. Three to seven people in a group who perform a script without actually acting it out. There are rules. Strict rules, about times and movement and added singing, etc. 

I was interested enough to go see the coach of the forensics team (NOT Quincy, M.D., competitive speaking), who was always glad to take on another kid. And take me on he did. I was immediately asked to be in a different multiple reading that was just starting rehearsals. There were three coaches, we came to know them as Mickie, Pete, and Torg. All three still teach. At least two of them are still involved in debate, speech, or drama. I should point out that they were all in their mid-twenties years ago when they coached us, just starting out and being paid an absolute pittance.

People, I found myself there. I found my HUSBAND there. And some of the best friends I have ever had. We were a bunch of really smart geeks, who wore suits on Saturdays for tournaments, and stayed after school for HOURS to practice, gladly. This was my crowd.

Room 234 was Pete's room. There was a radio booth in the corner with file cabinets containing scripts and debate research articles. My favorite was the little card file entitled, "Millions will die." This was a debate strategy. A way to suggest that whatever the other side was promoting would kill millions or have some other catastrophic consequences.

That year, we decided to do a "roast" of a team member every week, and spent time in Room 234 planning and making lists and song parodies. How I missed it when it was my turn, I will never know, but it was one of the happiest moments of my life when I realized that people liked me enough to spend that kind of time on me.

The story I remember most from Room 234...I went through a lot of emotional turmoil in high school. Who doesn't? But this was enough that my grades went from A's and B's to D's and F's. The sort of thing where, if you saw it today, you would worry that the kid was planning suicide. That kind of emotional turmoil.

Anyway, when I got my report card, I knew I couldn't take it home, so what did this brilliant geek do to destroy the evidence? That's right, go into the radio booth, open the window, and hang the burning report card outside the window. Until I heard, "Mr. Shaheen? We smell smoke!"

Shit.

And Pete, forgetting that I had gone in there, came busting in, to see me sheepishly holding the last ashes of my report card. "Hi! Sorry! Just me." I think poor Pete aged about ten years in that minute. (If you are missing any hair, Pete, allow me to apologize).

I learned a lot on that team. I learned that being one of the 'popular kids' didn't really matter. I learned how to stand up in front of a roomful of people and talk. I learned that sometimes, even if you have a 104 degree fever, if people are counting on you, you take some Tylenol, suck it up and do it anyway. I learned that a teacher who listens to you and understands your silly teenage woes is a gift.

This is for Mickie, Pete, and Torg, and Gene, and Tom, and for all the other teachers out there like them. What you do, how you behave around the kids, is everything to them. And they remember you for it.

Thanks. 

Hot Flash Competition

image from amazon.com 

Okay, I've never completely disrobed in a restaurant ladies' room to dry off from a hot flash, so I will have to concede this one to Amy Ferris, author of Marrying George Clooney: Confessions from a Midlife Crisis.

Disclosure: I was asked by the publisher to review this book ( maybe my screen name was a tip off?), and received a free copy to do so. Otherwise, I was not compensated for this review.

All over this book, the blurbs call it hilarious, and a laff-riot, and I have to say, that though Amy Ferris can be very funny, it's the humanity of the book that touched me. Ferris wrote this while in the depths of menopause hell. Insomnia guaranteed that she would be up every night at 3 a.m., and she decided to write. Because of the circumstances under which she wrote, the chapters tend to read like blog posts; a good thing if you are a fan of good blogging. (One note: the constant changing of fonts is unnecessary and distracting.) 

Ferris tells the tale not only of dealing with the changes and challenges of mid-life, but of dealing with her mother's advancing dementia, some of which is separated in an epilogue which she introduces this way:

"What started out as my journey through menopause...became a book about my menopausal journey coupled/woven together with my mom's journey and her rapid descent into dementia. THIS WAS NOT PLANNED. Not at all. It was something that just happened. At first I thought,"Yeah, there she goes stealing my thunder...I get menopause, of course she has to have something like dementia..."

And in that raw moment of honesty, I decided that I would Marry Amy Ferris. Here are a couple of my favorite gems.

• "And let me just say for the record, when you are in the thick of menopause, there are no molehills, only mountains."
• "I would say that a good 65 percent of the clothes in my closet not only no longer fits me but also, as an aside, it no longer looks good on a hangar."
• "I tell Ken that I am worried, anxious, and irritable. Without missing a beat, this is what he says, "We can have sex. That will make you feel better."

Don't pick this book up for a good laugh. Pick it up to see that it's not just you; a very important fact to those of us in the the hot flash club.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

20 year-old-Girl is very active in the campus Gay/Straight Alliance, and considers herself pan-sexual. Everybody can be sexy. How's that for widening the dating pool? 

She asked me to come with her, on November 20th, to the GSA-sponsored Transgender Day of Remembrance candlelight vigil. Before we went, I didn't realize there would be a guest speaker. By the time we left, I was completely grateful I had gone.

TDoR is a day to remember all the people who were killed every year because they were perceived to be transgender. There's so much wrong with that, I can't even begin...

The weather was cold and breezy that night, and we fought to keep our candles lit, as Tom, the GSA president did a wonderful job of reading only a partial list of the names of the victims from the previous 12 months. From all over the world, and his voice didn't catch until he got to our hometown. He did beautifully. It was very moving, and I told him so afterward.

back inside 

Back inside to warm up, we had hot cider and donuts, and listened to Rachel Crandall tell her story of growing up not knowing who she was. Of marrying to 'cure' herself of these feelings that she was born in the wrong body. Of losing her spouse and her job, and wanting to kill herself. Of telling her brother that she felt she was really a woman, and her brother replying, "I've known that for years, I'm glad you could tell me." 

This is Rachel. 

There were plenty of tears, especially 20-year-old-Girl's. She is a true empath and easily feels others' pain. She cried for Rachel, and she cried as she said to me, "Thank you for not turning away when I told you what I was." Thank God I was there to dry her tears and tell her that I love her no matter what.

We listened to a young person there who told us that he had just come out to his parents a few weeks earlier as trans, and was looking for advice on a therapist to help transition. Another lucky young person whose parents are probably devastated, but love their child nonetheless. No parent would choose this for their child. Life is hard enough without the pain of not fitting your own body.

There is help. If you are in Michigan, try here, where Rachel is the Executive Director. I love this picture and caption from the website's helpline page:

Nothing keeps Rachel from taking your help line call! 

Somebody asked if life was easier for a transgender person now than it was twenty years ago when Rachel came out, and she said, "Yes, definitely," but she still worries about being on the list for next year's Day of Remembrance. She rightly said that if you know someone, they become human to you. Give yourself a chance to see the human in everyone around you. 

Send Your Thanks Today

No servicemen without a greeting! Click the orange arrows to see what you can do. Xerox will let you send a card for free. It's quick and easy, and the right thing to do.

Random Tuesday Thoughts:The Unfinished Symphony

 

Welcome to Random Tuesday Thoughts as hosted by the lovely Keely at The UnMom.

• I had quite a long list of things to accomplish on Monday, and this post here? Is the only thing I managed. from that list. Although I did get some other stuff done, including shopping and cooking.
• This is for Jess: 

•  Dinner Monday night was chicken and cheese tortellini casserole, with cranberry orange cake for dessert. Cream cheese frosting on that. I know, I don't believe it either.
• This one is for Cap'n Dumbass: 
  That's right...a LEGO minivan.
•  Husband Styro and I volunteered to be in a musical play for Christmas. What the hell was I thinking? Play practice with a bunch of ten-year-olds is totally kicking my ass. 
• Sunday - practice 3-6
• Monday - practice 7-9
• Tuesday - practice 7-9
• Wednesday - practice 7-9
• Thursday - Wings game with younger sister and her husband for FREE!
• Friday - call time 6.
• Saturday - call time 6
• Sunday - call time sometime in the afternoon, which I am too lazy to look for right now.
• I'm too sleepy to tell you about dinner on Friday with the Literal family. Soon, I promise.