20 years ago
Oct. 5th, 2003 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbcA random thought: what was I doing (or probably doing) exactly 20 years ago today?
05 October 1983: I have now been at Oswego State for a little over a month. On a typical Sunday, I'd crawl out of bed blindly hungover (Saturday night at Broadwell's), and start the only part-time job I could find: Sunday morning janitor for my dorm, Seneca Hall.
After emptying 10 floors' worth of pizza boxes, vomit and buffalo style chicken wing bones, I'd scrub my entire body down and head to brunch in Pathfinder Dining Hall. Carbs, carbs, carbs, scrambled with ketchup, copious amounts of orange juice. Uniform consisted of a backwards baseball cap, t-shirt and sweat pants, with bowling shoes. Pathfinder is connected to Seneca via a tunnel (in the winter, as I will soon experience first hand, Oswego averages -15C/10F with 5 metres of snow).
While my peers seem kind of obsessed with this notion of homework, I spend my day listening to tunes, chatting with friends, and being a general distraction. I may bang out my calculus homework (the fooker collects it), and will read the stuff for Medieval Lit. I won't crack a book (or even bother to attend) Existentialism: having read L'Étranger deux mille fois, I'm all about existentialism. I'll also call home and do the school-is-really-hard-but-I'm-a-good-boy shtick. Tonite I'll rustle up the others on the 5th floor with poor work habits (all of whom will drop out, save moi) and populate a corner of the library.
I mean Tavern. I always get those two mixed up.
What were you up to 20 years ago today?
05 October 1983: I have now been at Oswego State for a little over a month. On a typical Sunday, I'd crawl out of bed blindly hungover (Saturday night at Broadwell's), and start the only part-time job I could find: Sunday morning janitor for my dorm, Seneca Hall.
After emptying 10 floors' worth of pizza boxes, vomit and buffalo style chicken wing bones, I'd scrub my entire body down and head to brunch in Pathfinder Dining Hall. Carbs, carbs, carbs, scrambled with ketchup, copious amounts of orange juice. Uniform consisted of a backwards baseball cap, t-shirt and sweat pants, with bowling shoes. Pathfinder is connected to Seneca via a tunnel (in the winter, as I will soon experience first hand, Oswego averages -15C/10F with 5 metres of snow).
While my peers seem kind of obsessed with this notion of homework, I spend my day listening to tunes, chatting with friends, and being a general distraction. I may bang out my calculus homework (the fooker collects it), and will read the stuff for Medieval Lit. I won't crack a book (or even bother to attend) Existentialism: having read L'Étranger deux mille fois, I'm all about existentialism. I'll also call home and do the school-is-really-hard-but-I'm-a-good-boy shtick. Tonite I'll rustle up the others on the 5th floor with poor work habits (all of whom will drop out, save moi) and populate a corner of the library.
I mean Tavern. I always get those two mixed up.
What were you up to 20 years ago today?
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 03:56 pm (UTC)Bump. Set. Spike. I broke my thumb playing volleyball. I was 34.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 03:59 pm (UTC)=refused to wear anything but slacks. Polyester slacks
=loved to cook and wear an apron
=was reading The Odyssey, as was my sister (12) and my Da (39, and attending uni part-time). They so didn't understand the book. ;)
=refused to stop watching Sesame Street, despite repeated beatings from my brothers and being ostracized by my peers.
How gay was I?
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 10:11 am (UTC)Surreal.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 04:01 pm (UTC)September 1983
Date: 2003-10-05 12:07 pm (UTC)...programming text-based Adventure-like games in Pascal, learning language parsing and the beginnings of compiler theory, using Digital's stab at the PC market, the "GIGI", to plot Lissajou figures, trying to learn (I think it was) Ada (or was it C?), Forth, LISP, writing morose poetry, practising Zen brush painting, making pottery of locally gathered clay with locally gathered terra sigillata decoration.
...living at my friend's place with his crazy mother. Oy, now there's a story: she had brain chem issues, and couldn't help herself yelling obscenities at her 12 year old daughter; she knew this was wrong, so she'd turn on every appliance in the house to make white noise to drown herself out, but you could still hear her screaming the filthiest things at her little girl; she believed meat needed to be aged in the fridge till it turned bluish and smelled "ripe," was writing a PhD thesis about eye colour in mediaeval icon painting. But she took me in when I was absolutely destitute, and she did make fabulous scones.
...not having sex with anyone at the time, I think it was the longest period in my life when I just wasn't interested in getting it on with another person of any gender.
...parking cars p/t and cooking p/t to pay the bills.
...taking solace in recreational chemistry.
...making very high marks in Humanities and Sciences but only passed math by grace of my math teacher making up a mark and then "losing" the exam (which was supposed to go on file).
...planning to go to University and study religion (most everybody insisted I was going to do something with computers), and the ONLY person who understood or encouraged this was Pauline Jones, who was admirable as a teacher and a parent because she saw her students and children for who they were and encouraged them - as opposed to everyone and everything else in Hamilton, bent on crushing the life out of people with any spark or the least little deviance from "normal."
...hanging with my friend Paul; Paul, me, Caroline and Alison would get in Paul's falling-apart neon-yellow VW bug and drive to Toronto. Paul was a police magnet - one trip, driving up Yonge between Dundas and Wellesley (a total of about 8 blocks) he accumulated something like 23 violations, and barely avoided rolling the VW into a police car. When he went back to Toronto to pay the fines he got a ticket for jaywalking, the only time I've ever heard of that law being applied in Toronto.
...listening to anything Baroque or "original instruments," Eurthythmics, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Flock of Seagulls, Men at Work, Spandau Ballet, Talking Heads, Boomtown Rats, Rush, Guess Who, Fleetwood Mac, and lots and lots of Carole Pope.
Re: September 1983
Date: 2003-10-05 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 08:03 pm (UTC)I think it was a horrible idea to ditch grade 13. Most high school students aren't ready for post-secondary education at age 19, so I fail to see the wisdom in sending them off a year earlier.
There's something missing between high school and college/university. I don't know what it is, but I do know that almost no one I know knew what they wanted to do for a living when they finished high school. Which results in having to pay off student loans for a decade of your life.
So in conclusion, if they were gonna drop grade 13, they should have found something to replace it.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 08:41 pm (UTC)Rather than puttering away in another year of high school, we should encourage youth to take a year off after high school and work or travel. Like many European kids do. Or do a year of liberal arts in their first year of uni if they want to go right into school.
Do you think that Ontario students under the old system were any better at discerning a career path at 19 than 18? I don't. I think the problem is anyone presents university as the place where one identifies--and gets the credentials for--a specific career. Grade 13 doesn't mitigate that fallacy.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 09:01 pm (UTC)But I agree that grade 13 in itself is not necessary. Kids should be encouraged to take some time after high school to figure out what they want to do - the year-off you suggest.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 09:07 pm (UTC)*scurries away*
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 09:17 pm (UTC)(I'm still waiting for my destiny to arrive. Anyone? Hello??)
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 03:23 pm (UTC)I was living in the Leverett Towers with a view over the parking lot in back (senior year, I got a decent view of the River!)
I was probably still on the fencing team at that point, though I dropped off mid-season, realizing that I wasn't improving OR enjoying it anymore, and wasn't likely to see many matches as younger talent kept coming in with stronger skills.
Sometime that year I lost my virginity listening to Duran Duran with a cool chick in the dorm who had similar musical taste and was about as drunk as I was. There may alraedy have been a copy of "Playgirl" stashed under my bed as well, it was definitely there by year's end. I'd been *looking at* them for years, natch, but that was probably the first one I plunked down money for.
My roommates and I were frequent Friday-night denizens at the Hong Kong restaurant, where we sucked down the "scorpion bowls" and bitched about not getting more attention from women. I can't imagine why they didn't snap up a bunch of plastered 20-year-olds, what were they thinking? :)
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 04:05 pm (UTC)3 years later I travelled up to Boston with some friends from uni; we ended up in the Hong Kong drinking scorpion bowls out of wooden Sear-ish salad bowls. Mine had a chunk missing that looked like a bite had been taken out. I convinced Carton (Mike Carton, one of those guys no one called by his first name) that I'd bitten it, so he tried his--he was one of those guys who couldn't bear not being the centre of attention.
Rather quickly the bouncer gently but firmly lifted Mike up out of his chair and carried him down to the street. Where he waited until we finished our scorpion bowls, after which we did nothing worth recalling.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 09:51 pm (UTC)Most grade school teachers from that era didn't teach science so much as parrot it from a textbook they themselves barely understood.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-05 08:33 pm (UTC)And in the 80s, bad hair was the great equalizer....we've seen the photos/
*ducks*
Ughh, 1983
Date: 2003-10-05 08:14 pm (UTC)My dog, Cleo the boxer, who had been with me since I was 11 and was in a sense my best friend and confidant, (when you have no siblings, these things happen) and who was the only sentient being who I felt loved me unconditionally, with no expectations, developed tumours and had to be put down by the vet. (the vet, his assistant and I were all bawling, Cleo was the only calm one at the time).
My father, who had had a malignant melanoma removed in 1991, had a recurrence of it, which spread to his neck and mouth, and spent three months in hospital, having part of his jaw and his tongue removed. He died in October 1984. My mother, who I had grown up thinking was a strong and capable person, started showing she was not, and started kind of unraveling before my eyes, becoming more and more emotionally dependant on me, with me resenting this desperately, as I just wanted my own life, but I was too duteous or guilty to abandon my parents when Dad was so sick.
I was having titanic struggles with my sexuality. I had started at puberty, 13 to 14, deciding that I was gay, and had been quite comfortable with that and had planned my life accordingly. At 18 despite my best intentions, I had also started having interactions with girls/women, and enjoyed that too, which left me somewhat scrambled or perplexed.
In 1983, I was out of a 5 year relationship with (Polish) Margaret, and was wondering which direction to go. Gay men kept telling me that any interests that I may have felt about women were obviously false, and that my true nature had to be gay and that I should just admit it and get on with it. Problem was, that I was unhappy whatever I did, and with whomever I did it, and felt desperately lonely, not feeling like I fitted in anywhere. I was trying to be a “good gay man” and failing. I tried to be a “good straight man” and was failing.
I felt that society’s expectations to be one thing or the other was pulling me in half, and I couldn’t cope with it any more.
I was so desperately miserable, that I even failed a subject at Uni, which for an intellectual snob like me was tantamount to feeling suicidal.
Not a good year.
Re: Ughh, 1983
Date: 2003-10-05 08:19 pm (UTC)Re: Ughh, 1983
Date: 2003-10-05 08:32 pm (UTC)Of course I was pretty much loaded all the time during my undergrad days. Feelings? What feellings?
Re: Ughh, 1983
Date: 2003-10-05 08:35 pm (UTC)Re: Ughh, 1983
Date: 2003-10-07 08:41 am (UTC)Glad things are better for you now.
Re: Ughh, 1983
Date: 2003-10-07 01:26 pm (UTC)Now I just have fun with it, and in that, I'm not necessarily referring to sex, but the reactions my sexuality can induce in others.
I remember
Date: 2003-10-05 09:14 pm (UTC)Re: I remember
Date: 2003-10-05 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 08:14 am (UTC)I would have been a sophmore in college, shacked-up with my emotionally frozen architecture major boyfriend, cheating on him with my friend Maggie, because I didn't know about Poly then, and he was in deniel about my being bi
I, no doubt would have had a searing hangover from ALOT of vodka. If it was a Sunday AM I was probably doing the NY times crossword puzzle and smoking dope and hoping that aforementioned boyfriend might dain to stop working long enough to shag.
I had big, bad hair in those days.
I have much better partner taste now, too. Still do the Times puzzle but drink coffee instead.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 09:20 am (UTC)I'm sure Duran Duran was playing...
Date: 2003-10-06 12:54 pm (UTC)I remember being too studious back then, busy in forensics and English and even taking pre-calculus (which I hated) at the local community college. I was living with my maternal grandparents at that time as well. I cannot remember if my mom was still in the North Beach flat or if she was back in Central America (too far back). I did have platinum hair however. And, it was covered with a lovely shade of Fuschia Jazzing.
I do recall going to the beach with Kristy Swanson for our Friday marine biology practical and having her take me aside and ask if I wanted some Rush. Rush? Look, open the cap and let the aroma develop. Sniff Sniff. Mmmm, different. (It would be a few more years before I made the connection between nitrites and the opening of vascular cavities.)
Life was relatively drama-free back then. Long hours spent with friends away from authority.
Re: I'm sure Duran Duran was playing...
Date: 2003-10-06 08:46 pm (UTC)Her name is Rio...
Re: I'm sure Duran Duran was playing...
Date: 2003-10-06 08:46 pm (UTC)Her name is Rio...
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 08:47 pm (UTC)Did I say that out loud?
Out loud
Date: 2003-10-06 09:35 pm (UTC)Yeah, a lot of guys are real twinks at 19 (like I was) but a fine few really know how to make a guy happy. Horny li'l bastards!
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 07:51 pm (UTC)L'Étranger is the only book I credit with changing my life. I read it in grade 12 and it truly opened my mind.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-06 08:48 pm (UTC)