Hole's "Pretty on the Inside"--a musical meander

Pretty on the Inside, Hole's debut, came out when I was in my early twenties. It spoke to me, wept with me, raged with me, rumbled in me, and stayed with me like nothing ever had (nor has). "Teenage Whore," "Garbageman," "Pretty on the Inside". . .the music articulated my self-loathing, my anger, my pain. I'd forgive Courtney Love (nearly) anything because she provided a catharsis, an expression of all the bubbling bullshit inside of me.

The rawness, the freakishness, the pain of Love's vocals in an age of Tori Amos and Suzanne Vega...no contest (I knew I was supposed to find "Me and a Gun" cathartic, but I didn't).

As far as Riot Grrrls go (is that antiquated or what?) nothing, nothing by Bikini Kill, L7, Seven Year Bitch and other valuable bands, touches Pretty on the Inside.

More insociability (yada, yada, yada)

In my previous post, I came across as crying "victim!" in terms of my social failures. I’d like to remedy that.

Why I freak people out

1) Peculiar announcements. For example, in a seminar once, a conversation revolved around gender and literature. I seldom spoke in the class, but this time, I was unstoppable. “Ezra Pound once declared that “the brain is essentially a great clot of genital fluid” (e.g., the intellect is, essentially, male). Everybody turned to stare at me, open-mouthed. I attempted to explain why I divulged this curious, if mildly revolting, quote, but quickly gave up. I was a bit surprised that my colleagues, primarily modernists, were unfamiliar with the cite. But never mind.

2) When I’ve done something I feel badly about--shame or embarrassment--I shut down to others. And I tend to walk about looking angry (although I’m not--but my face is “set”; I'm trying to mask my emotional state, and I suppose it appears angry). I add this because today someone asked me if I was upset over something, and I was feeling fine at the time.

3) When I drink to excess at parties and other gatherings, I can become overly aggressive, sexually inappropriate (making passes at people even though I‘m not interested in actually having sex, making out with female friends--who I later avoid out of embarrassment), or I begin gossiping, talking about my experiences, etc. People are interested in none of the above; truth be told, I’d avoid someone like drunken me.

4) As I can’t do the small talk, and the “introductions” thing, I come across as a snobby, superior bitch. I’d like to claim I’m not, but maybe I am.

Actually, I can be a miserably moody female. Who wants to be around that?

Learning to Talk

I’ve just spent an evening out, at a bar, with a group of colleagues. I spoke with a few people, but I didn’t engage the way other folks did, I mostly sat outside the group and watched their interactions. Surprise! I remained sober while others fell about giddy with booze and plans to continue their intoxication into the night. Oh, the promise of the early evening buzz--who knows where the alcohol and the evening will take us? To curious bars, to strangers' beds, to pavement pukings, to sprained ankles from staggering in heels, to Godalmighty hangovers and the morning shame. . . .

I'm not pointing fingers here. I simply spent the evening watching these much younger people getting ready for a pre-term blowout (good for them). So, I spent a bit of time at the sidelines nursing a dirty vodka martini. A wallflower? At my age? Hell yes.

I wrote a few blogs back that I am fairly incapable of walking up and saying “hi, I’m SG, how are you etc.” I need to be introduced to people before I can talk to them. This aloofness isn’t intentional, and it isn’t a reliance on etiquette.

I’ve always been convinced that my lack of social success is due to some freakery on my part. I’m fundamentally unlikable, unlovable. But, how much of it is me, and how much of it is “them”? Do “they” sense my sordidness, my seaminess, before “they” even know who I am? I don’t know. I’ve always struggled with social settings, be it classrooms, parties, recess, or professional meetings. It’s not just awkwardness; maybe it’s like Prufrock being pinned against a wall.

One problem is that I can get so tongue-tied that I am simply inarticulate, and people can’t grasp what I’m saying. So many thoughts begin teeming in my head that I swear I get confused. Usually ½ xanax helps to level that mental calumny--which poses the question: is it anxiety that provokes the confusion? Maybe, maybe not.

Although the xanax generally does the trick, I took some prior to my PhD oral exam; even so, that was a disaster. I swear, I don’t know how I passed. It's ot that I didn't know the "answers," I just couldn't respond clearly to the questions posed. I am convinced that the paper I presented saved me. And the fact that my advisor is confident in me (but then, what if he isn’t, and he just doesn’t like to see his students fail? In the post-exam debriefing he assured me that he had seen the other committee members fail examinees--and this without my asking him “how did I pass?” I assume he either sensed my concerns or he and the other committee members had spoken of my inability to speak extemporaneously). Anways, there's a bit of shame in here; I humiliated myself in an arena where I should excel.

Which brings me to the reason I couldn’t sleep tonight. I’ve been passed up, ignored, for several opportunities I’ve been entitled to within the parameters of my program, which ends in June (please forgive me for being vague here. It‘s necessary). I’ve tried, twice, to bring authorities’ attention to this. Once, it worked. The second time, nothing. And I’m at a loss. I’m afraid to nag, But I do know that “squeaky wheels get the grease.” But why are people who aren’t squeaky, and who aren’t as advanced (in the program) as me, getting all the grease? Again, this isn’t paranoia. I just keep getting skipped. Either I’m invisible or people are picking up on the social ineptness. It certainly is not my job performance (I’ve got great evals). I’m thinking that, perhaps, my inelegant articulation impeded getting my message across to aforementioned authorities. Then again, they just might not give a whatever (the latter worries me, because one of the authorities is my advocate).

Anyways, I can't sleep because the clock is running out on my time in the prgram, and it looks like I'm going to leave with next to no real experience in my area, and I'm wondering how that will help me acquire a decent job next year.

Note: although my job requires me to speak publicly on a regular basis, I have few problems. I always prepare a “script” (with footnotes, believe it or not) before it’s necessary, so I’m seldom required to think hard on the spot.

Balloons Go Pop!

I recall a childhood party. Probably the first one I attended. It was a fellow student's birthday 'do, so naturally there were games. One of these was a race to sit on a balloon and pop it. I refused to do it. The birthday girl's father kept trying to get me to sit on that balloon, and he couldn’t understand that I was scared to--either I was afraid of the noise or I was afraid of “hurting” the balloon. I ended up crying over it, and the parents phoned my mother to come and get me. That was the last birthday party I attended as a child.

Sweet Sixteen and Never Been. . . .

This happened on my 16th birthday.

I went out with my friend Debbie. We headed for her boyfriend’s house in the northeastern side of town (about three miles away from my home). We drank a few beers, we listened to some Iron Maiden, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt...bad. Anxious. I wanted to go home. Debbie didn’t want to go. John, Debbie’s boyfriend, had a car, but he didn’t want to drive me home, which was understandable (the beers). They didn’t want me to call for a ride--my mom was at work (the graveyard shift), and her live-in boyfriend might get pissed off at chauffeuring, and this would get me in trouble. That was their reasoning anyway.

I should have gone with my instincts and called Herb (mother’s boyfriend). Instead, I went along with Debbie and John’s urging--they would find me a ride home. This meant we walked down the main drag in that part of town--with Debbie sticking her thumb out while John and I walked behind. A truck pulled over. A big, blue, old school Chevy.

Debbie yelled, “You got a ride!”

I said no. No. no.

John said, “Don’t be scared, I know this guy. He’s the security guard at Zed Middle School. I know him. He’s the best guy to drive you home--he’s a security guard.

So I clambered in. I gave him directions to my street (not my house).

We started off pleasantly enough. He offered me a Camel straight (non-filtered for you non-smokers)

Then he turned off the main drag. And he drove down street that, at the time, was undeveloped. Lots of fields. Lots of fields. And he pulled into one.

It was February. Snow covered everything.

He drove pretty far in-maybe half a mile. I remember seeing the lights of a bowling alley and a set of McDonalds arches. So close.

I said “what are you doing?”

He said, “I’m going to fuck you.”

I pleaded--no. I was still a virgin (and I was). He said I wasn't--couldn't be.

He opened the truck door and pulled me down the seat so that my legs were hanging out.
He stuffed it into me. He shoved his fingers up with it--to put it in me--impotent.

I was screaming. He put his hands around my neck--“I will strangle you. I will kill you bitch.” I shut up. I kept looking at those Golden Arches. At Silver Lanes' flashy signs.

Then I left; I went into third-person and saw what was happening from the other side of the windshield. It all became a movie, and Valerie Bertinelli was playing my part.

At the same time, I was still there. I saw the stupid plastic dog hanging from the rear-view mirror. I noted the murky blue, broken, dashboard speakers.

And then. I don’t know how this came to me…I grabbed my little, skinny, black Cricket lighter from my vest pocket and put it up to his face. He had some growth there, and I torched it. I seriously did.

He yelled, and knocked the lighter out of my hands, into the snow outside. The he pulled me out into the snow. He went back to choking me and trying to shove himself into me.
He finally gave up. Standing up, he said “I’ll drive you home.”

I gave, again, directions to the street I lived on. I added “It’s my 16th birthday.” He said “I’d give you money if I had any.”

All I kept thinking was “sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”

A block before my house I said “This is it”
“Are you sure” he said.
“”Yes” I said.
We were in front of the house were I usually babysat for a neighbor woman.
So he dropped me off. When he drove away, and after he’d turned the corner, I ran home.

I don’t want to go into the drama that followed right now. I’ll just say:

I felt safe/justified when, after being inspected by doctors that night, the police drove me back to the scene of the crime, notes a sign of a scuffle, and found my little black Cricket lighter--evidence that I wasn't making it up.

Debbie and John denied I’d been raped. They said I was making it up for attention. And laughed about it; they denied they’d been with me when I got into that blue Chevy; they said I’d left John’s house to find a better party.

My mother cut out a blurb from the local paper that said “teen hitchhiker raped.”

I went to the house were I usually babysit the day after my rape just to let the woman know that I’d been dropped off nearby, in case she saw anything “funny.” she said, “you mean like him?”

And there he was. Walking up and down the street smoking a cigarette.

Did “they” catch” him? No. Not a surprise, either. This is a city where a then-recent police chief said, when asked what a woman should do if she were confronted with rape, that she should “lay back and enjoy it” (following a public outcry, he chose to wear the slogan on a t-shirt. Somehow, he thought he was being funny)

I’m sure I’ll elaborate on the police's woeful invesitgation at another time. But can I say this for now?

Fuck you, Detective Poindexter.

Back at work

Today was my first day back at work following a three month break. It's been a fantastically long three months (and I don't mean "fantastic" as in "terrific," but as in "preternaturally"). I'm grateful for the return to order. If you haven't figured it out already, I'm horrific at regulating myself. Even so, I woke up way too early (4:00!) worried about the day. Perhaps it was because after several months of self-imposed isolation, I was going to be surrounded by people. Usually, this sets me on edge, so I took 1/2 xanax before I attended the big meeting that initiates our work year.

As I said, I was dreading seeing all of these people. But, surprisingly, I was pleased to see everyone (at least, those I know). You see, I assume that people don't like me, that people avoid me, etc. So I was thrilled when I was greeted with hugs, pleasantries, and happy catch-up chats (and no, it's not because I've been away for "health issues").

I guess that I'm projecting my distrust of people: I expect them to see me how I see them (now, that that make any sense?). I'm seriously phobic about social situations. I'm peculiar about meeting people. I don't--I can't--walk up and introduce myself to a stranger. I wait for introductions. Even if I'm standing with a friend and an unknown third party, I won't say jack unless/until I'm introduced. I don'tknow if it's shyness or a fear of intruding on others' conversations, but there it is. I just fail at sociability. Unless I drink. then, I fear, I get too social. Which is why I am not attending the annual autumn wine and cheese 'do.

Anyways, today was an uncommonly nice day.

Aside: Miles Davis's "Black Satin" is one odd track; I can't decide if it's disconcerting, frightening, or genius.

An "A-Ha" Moment

Although I'd planned for a long bike ride today, the weather wasn't conducive. Instead, I spent the day in my pajamas catching up on magazines I subscribe to.

One article, from the August 20th New Yorker, in particular caught my attention: "Parallel Play A lifetime of restless isolation explained." Tim Page, a music critic, wrote the article. He recounted his lifelong isolation, his attempts to "fit in," his social awkwardness, his obsession over minutiae, his reportedly high IQ, and I thought "Holy cow. This sounds way too familiar." The point is, a few years ago he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. So is it possible that I have this condition? Is this, and not my family situation, the reason why I am the way I am?

For a few reasons, I've declined any meetings with psychologists or psychiatrists for the past decade. I'm far too suspicious of the mental health industry as a whole. Page's article, however, has me thinking that perhaps I should seek some psych assistance.

Perhaps I do have a conditon that predisposes me to certain behaviours, and my family situation simply exacerbated that condition. I actually hope this is the case. . .because I would be able to concretize, define, me.