Personal Narrative

I haven't blogged in a while...

Well I figured I'd just post my personal narrative, in its rough draft form. I think it came out pretty well...It's long but it reads fast.


The back door of my suburban abode slammed with a thud. I was off to the football field. As I walked through backyard after backyard in the melting February snow, I asked myself why I was doing this. I didn’t even like football. I couldn’t help that I was the least aggressive person I knew. The wet snow began to seep into my shoes as I contemplated my reasoning.
“Should I turn back?”, I asked myself.
“Are you a man?”, testosterone retorted.
I was halfway there and was wearing my Green Bay Packers jersey, I wasn’t turning back.
“The Packer’s ehy? Have you even watched a full Packers game before?”, testosterone asked.
“No, but I’ve watched portions of their games a few...many times.” I stammered.
I was beginning to hear the voices of my peers a few yards away.
“Okay, hopefully Adam isn’t here today,” I said under my breath.
“Pass the ball you pansy!”, a faint voice shouted. Adam was there.
My heart skipped a beat. Adam was my bully at the time. Derek had moved last year, so the position was open. Adam quickly filled the duty within a few weeks of Derek absence. My feet were completely soaked by the time I reached the football field. I was never greeted with any harsh words. It was always, “Dressman’s here”. This always left an air of suspense, “Will today be one of the bad days, or will I be spared?” I would soon find out; the insults usually came once the game started.
“We’re playing smear the queer, you’re it.”
I was liking Adam’s style. He was straight and to the point. He let you know what kind of day it was going to be right away. Derek on the other hand, stretched out the process. He gradually built up suspense and then swooped down on you right when you thought you made through the day. So in a way, you could say Adam was an improvement.
Each bully I had singled me out for some reason. Okay, I was a little chubby, but other than that I was a pretty nice kid. They just saw me as an easy target I guess. The worst part of the bullying was that all of my friends took the bully’s side. After he left, of course, they casually acted as if nothing had even happened and we were back on good terms. I never said anything to them because they were always good friends when he wasn’t around. That seemed reasonable to me.
The object of Smear the Queer is to tackle the one with the ball. The one with the ball has to keep from being tackled. And so Smear the Queer began, and within a few moments, ended. I was used to it, give the worst kid the ball a few times, easy target: just to boost the confidence and get the juices flowing. If I had been one of the aggressive, I probably would have done it too. But I wasn’t.
“Don’t you guys ever get tired of using me,” I said to Adam and his posse, “I mean you know I’m the weakest player.”
“You know, I don’t know, it’s just fun for some reason. Now stop being a little pussy and get up and actually try.”, Adam sneered.
On a normal day, Adam and my “friends” would mess around with me for the first part of the day, and then get tired of it. We would then proceed to play a regular football game and forget about all the abuse. But today was different. We never got around to playing a regular football game. We played side-swipe the “pansy” in the Packers jersey, over and over again.
Each time the ball was kicked off to me, I would scramble to pick up the ball, and then run as far away from the wave of pain as I could before ultimately being smothered into the ground. I knew the taste of grass and snow all too well. Before I knew what had happened, the ball was being kicked off again. I stumbled up off the ground and hastily picked up the football. Adam, now driving what looked to be a chariot pulled by twelve-year-olds was rushing towards me at full force. This time, I instinctively jumped out of the way right before he could spear through me. Before I could congratulate myself on the smooth move, his posse fell on top of me, one-by-one.
“Ugh! Get the hell off me!” I commanded wearily. I was a pretty tolerant person, but I just couldn’t take any more of this. I wasn’t so much angry at Adam as I was my friends. I had successfully juked out Goliath, and did my friends congratulate me on the move? No, they decided to have some sort of testosterone orgy on top of my face. I never usually got too angry when this sort of thing happened, but today was different. I was really mad. I was so angry that I was going to...get up and begin my long trek home. Who was I kidding, I wasn’t going to do anything.
Before I could start my pity party for myself, a football hit the back of my head. I turned around and saw Adam and my “friends” laughing. I don’t know how long I stood and watched them joke before they turned to go their separate ways, but it seemed like forever. All the while, the anger and frustration was building up inside of me. Without realizing it, I bent down and scooped up a large ball of snow.
Summers were always fun for me. There was the occasional bullying but other than that we played baseball every day. I was actually good at baseball. In fact, I was one of the best in the neighborhood. I was great at batting, and I always had the game-saving catch out in the field. Since I was so good, no one ever messed around with me. Until football season rolled around, the baseball diamond was my refuge. How does this fit into the story you may be asking. Well, I was a great pitcher. I had near-perfect aim and a good arm. Now that you know that bit of information, what I did back on the football field seems plausible.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I hurled a snowball the length of the football field, thinking it would maybe come close to hitting someone. It did. It came really close. Close enough to hit Adam in the side of the face. I watched in horror as the snowball exploded just below Adam’s eye.
And so Smear the Queer began again. Except this time I probably wouldn’t just be tackled, I’d be beaten until you couldn’t tell if it was me or the ground. All I could do was run. I sprinted through a few backyards and then frantically crawled under someone’s deck. Adam ran past the deck breathing heavily. Thankfully it was just him, the posse was probably still in shock back at the field. As I sat under the deck trying not to breath, I heard his heavy panting and saw his menacing legs make their way past the deck numerous times. Each time he went by his panting increased and his speed was reduced. Finally he walked by tiredly, cursing under his rapid breathing. I decided it was safe to come out after he didn’t pass by the deck again. I slowly crept out from underneath my wooden castle, stepped over my moat of bushes, and inched along the sides of the house. I jumped behind a bush when I got to the front of the house, scouting out my path home. My stomach felt like it was about to jump out of my skin. I considered just hiding behind the bushes for a few days. My stomach did a flip as I saw Adam walk along with his posse a few yards over. It looked like he had given up. At least that’s what I told myself before I was up and running across the yard towards my house, three backyards ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam, now a charging locomotive heading straight towards my yard. “He’s going to cut me off, I’m going to die,” I told myself. I kept my eyes locked on my back door as I ran directly towards it. Two yards away.
Somehow I was ahead of Adam by ten feet, one backyard away from my house. I felt him grab for my jersey, the tips of his fingers clawing at my back. Just then, the adrenaline kicked in, his hand quickly loosing grip of the jersey. I raced ahead, now a few feet in front of him.
I saw my back door, “Oh God, is it locked,” I thought to myself. I grabbed for the handle and forced my way in, at the same time closing the door behind me. I turned around to see Adam, enraged, staring through the glass door at me. Trying to catch my breath, I limped over to his figure still standing on the doorstep and turned the lock. He accepted defeat and walked away. I sat down and replayed the whole ordeal in my mind. Austin-1, Adam-0.

'The Girl' Chronicles Pt. 1

I've been putting this off for a long time but I really feel like I need to write about it.

So, here it is, the girls I've been romantically involved with in my life up to this point.

To start off, I've always been a hopeless romantic. Pretty cliché, I know, but it's true. I can remember the first girl I really became interested in. It was 4th grade and I had just moved here from "Chicagoland", Indiana.
I was 'the' cool kid. I mean I came in there the first day with my sweater, khaki zip off pants that turned into shorts, and a sort of a crew cut haircut. I was the man. I remember going to gym the same day and just suavely unzipping my zip-off pants so they became khaki shorts. All watched and were amazed at my cool demeanor and kickball skills. By the end of the week I could get any girl I wanted. So I went after this girl named Hannah.
Every day at recess I would chase her around the playground trying to catch her glance at every opportunity. I chased her around every day for quite some time. Then one day I walked into the classroom just as someone was broadcasting that "Austin likes Hannah" to the whole class. I immediately turned as red as the sweater I was wearing and stood outside in the hall until the teacher came out and asked what I was doing. I sat down and pretended I had no idea about what had just happened. Hannah and her friends were just sitting there laughing, all pretending that they had no idea I liked her in the first place. There was one other guy in the class that was rumored to have liked her. In the end she went for the other guy, so I settled for this other girl I didn't even know. I just remember us deciding to "go out" one morning before a field trip. I think that lasted like 1 week(?) So I had some girl go tell her that I didn't want to go out with her anymore. I was pretty cruel. But I mean, who cared, I was the man. I was funny, I dressed to impress, and I had mad kickball skills.
Then came the day I lost my throne as "the man"...or so I thought. It was just an ordinary day, summer was almost here, and we were getting on the bus to go home one day. Until I was in my seat and we were about to leave, I realized I had to go to the bathroom really bad. Some jerk who sat in front of me was taunting me the whole time by saying "water! gatorade! waterfallsssss". But I had to go too bad to be angry at him. I asked the bus driver if she could pull over really fast at a gas station so I could go. I mean she had let someone do the same thing just the other week. But, despite my constant nagging, she would not pull over. So, I'm sitting there, now in pain and all of the sudden, I feel a cool sensation going down my right leg...

All I remember is everyone just hitting the person sitting next to them saying "whoa, dude, look at that kid." I was in shock. I pretended it wasn't really happening. Honestly, it was all just a blur until the bus driver yelled some profanity once she realized pee was running down the isle and collecting near the gas pedal. I was then given the red carpet treatment by being dropped off first...it was the least she could do. I ran home, now crying because I realized what I had just done. My mom thought I had seriously injured myself when she heard a shrieking kid run into the house with his pants halfway down. She told me everything was ok as I sputtered out that "everyone is...is...is going to make fun of me". I sulked around the rest of the day pitying myself and dreading waking up the next day to be ridiculed by all my peers. I feared for my confrontations with girls the most. I mean with guys, I could just be a bamf and say "oh yeah, I just did because I had to go" but with girls that wouldn't work. I was terrified that my harem of 4th grade girls would stop liking me because I wet myself in public.
The next morning at school, no one said anything. I didn't know if they knew or not, but no one acted any different around me. I remember going up to this girl I was pretty close to and asking her if she knew. She didn't, but laughed at me for a good minute or so, and then swore she wouldn't tell anyone. Word never really got out about it. Only that summer did I ever endure any ridicule over it. But that was by the kid who bullied me all the time. But most important of all, I was still the cool kid.


So I guess I got a little sidetracked there. I included my first encounter with women though. I didn't say anything about all the other girls I "liked" that year because I basically liked every girl at one time or another. So I'll wrap up the beginning of this series and continue next time with my middle school years.

Fear and Loathing in....writing

I was sitting here today thinking about why I don't like writing. Well its not that I don't like it, it's just hard for me to motivate myself to sit down and do it. I think part of it is I'm way too critical of myself. There have been countless times when I've sat down to write a script and within 20 minutes of just daydreaming and scratching out thoughts, I give up on it or give myself a reason to take a break. But I want so much to become great at writing. I even wish there were more writing assignments in school. I know they'll be a lot of writing this coming school year because of AP English IV and the creative writing class I'm taking so that gives me some hope for the dilemma. You may being saying to yourself, "well he's not too bad at writing in here", I guess its just easier for me to write out personal thoughts like this. When I try to write scripts, I should probably mirror the way I think when I'm writing in here. I don't know...next subject...

Amélie

I had the pleasure of watching this AMAZING film last Wednesday. It brought together all that I love about film and was just so amazing to watch. I was captivated from the title credits to the "fine". I know I get a little too excited about all the movies I see and I'm not the best at critiquing them (I'm a little to easy on most movies) but this just blew me away. It's one of those films that you can watch over and over again and it still has the same charm and beauty as it did in the first viewing. One thing I'm very grateful for is that I had never really heard that much about Amélie before I saw it. I knew it had been nominated for a lot of awards but other than that, I had heard nothing of it. I've been constantly thinking about it for the past week and I can honestly say that it changed who I am. After watching the film I was left with this awe and happiness. The plot is that Amélie is a shy introverted woman who works in a cafe. After returning a long-lost childhood treasure to a former occupant of her apartment, and seeing the effect it has on him, she decides to set out on a mission to make others happy and in the meantime pursues a guy who collects discarded photo booth pictures. The message the film sends out is one of making others smile, taking risks, and finding love in the midst of it all. So basically, it's a film about life in general.
Jeunet, the director, was flawless in his direction and Audrey Tautou is a brilliant actress. She was so captivating and interesting...and beautiful!
Ok, well enough of my infatuation with Amélie. I'm sorry! I can't help the film is one of the most amazing films I've ever seen!

Anyways, after tomorrow, my insane part of the summer begins. I'll basically be gone for the next 3 weeks on 3 different vacations that are days apart from each other. Tuesday morning, I leave for Washington D.C. with my Dad. He's there on business and we happen to have enough credit card free miles for a plane ticket for me. Geoff Davis, our Representative, got us access to a White House tour -of the West Wing (Oval Office, etc.) and a tour of the Capital. I'm pretty excited about it all.
Then there's the mission trip after I get back from D.C., then Orlando for my sister's dance competition. Then, in July (11th), I have to have my molars pulled (all 4). I'll be out for another week and a half...on the couch...in constant pain (I'm getting a head-start on pitying myself).
This summer will be a lot different from last summer....I did nothing last summer.

NEXT TIME...

The time I hit my childhood bully on the side of the face with a snowball...and the results of the incident.

Alice Cooper eat your heart out.

School's almost out. 19 Days.(not me obviously, but this picture pretty much sums this post up)

ACT, The Girl, Babel

Not too much has happened over the past few weeks. I took the ACT last weekend and the same day threw a surprise b-day party for Dad. The ACT sucked. I just hope I got above a 20. Which isn't too good of a score but its still average. I just did do too well on the math and science portions. I get the results back in 4-7 weeks. Dad's party was fun. He was extremely surprised and he loved the new TV mom bought for him.

I guess I should explain what happened on the days following the ACT. Well, during the test, there was this really attractive girl sitting a few seats in front of me. She had my attention the entire time; literally from the time she walked in to the end of the test. She had this really natural beauty and these really charming little quirks about her. She kept eating these peppermints (peppermint apparently stimulates the brain - helps you do better on tests). When she first walked in she took a few out of her purse and put them on the empty desk next to her. She then proceeded to eat about 25 of these mints all throughout the test, noisily unwrapping them each time. She had this other little thing about her. She wore this baggy jeans that look like they could have been her brothers. She doesn't really sound like some super-hot girl but just had this uncommon charm and beauty to her, and I was captivated. I never did get her name or anything; I couldn't see what was written on her test paper. But I did make about 2 seconds of eye contact with her as I was leaving through the school lobby. The thought of her stayed with me for a few days. I even tried to find her on myspace, without any luck. Well, you can't always get what you want.

Today I faked sick so I could stay home and catch up on some movies. I've watched Babel thus far. I thought it was really good. It was very dark and a bit depressing but that's the way it was supposed to be. I remember one the critics from my favorite podcast, Filmspotting, said Iñárritu (the director) was too harsh on his characters. In a way I agree -There was almost nothing good that happened without a horrible consequence. Babel was a series of stories that all connected in some way, so I guess I see what Guillermo Arriaga (the writer) was trying to say -that since all their stories are innerweaved, the bad that occurred in the beginning trickles down to all those connected. It's also a film about human flaws. Some of the choices the characters make have serious repercussions. This film reminded me of a much better version of Crash.