Fixation
I had dinner tonight at a little Italian pasta place on Denman St. Based on the menu posted outside (both in terms of content and reasonable prices) and the general atmosphere of the place, it looked like a great spot to settle in for a nice bite to eat. However, once I'd settled in and placed my order (essentially committing myself to sticking around), the music selection suddenly evolved into a showcase display of my own personal Most Hated Songs Ever list, were I to compile one. I wanted so bad to just run out of there crying — it was literally making me all anxious and frantic.
Example songs included:
Crystal Gayle's "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" [shudder]
Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call That The Blues"
Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" (Honestly, I like a lot of his
songs, but these aren't two of them — I'm not quite sure how they
both got played in an hour's time)
Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle"
Some Lionel Ritchie song I never remember the name or words of
Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" (I have a Neil Young thing anyway)
Morning Has Broken — I'm not sure who performs this version, but it's not the Cat Stevens original. Maybe the English Congregation version? It sort of sounds like Peter, Paul, and Mary on tricyclic antidepressants.
There were others, but I'm not going to tempt fate by trying to unforget them.
Anyway, it was awful. Years of therapy couldn't erase the effects of that meal's unfortunate soundtrack from my tender psyche. Oh the humanity.
Speaking of therapy, there's a childhood trauma reason a lot of these songs just happen to be from the same era, and got locked into my brain as harbingers of emotional doom — and, before anyone draws too many conclusions, no I wasn't sexually molested by Julio Iglesias or anything quite like that, though that would make for a great story.
Maybe I should just leave it at that. "I may or may not have been sexually molested by Julio Iglesias as an eight year old. . . ." No, too much Springer potential there.
Alright, the real story. When I was in second grade, I had a teacher who particularly didn't seem to like me. Or maybe she liked me, but had a peculiar way of dealing with me — I don't know what. Anyway, to give you some context of my experience with her in general, on one occasion, I remember walking out of the boys' bathroom , and one of my classmates, a guy named Ryan (not to be confused with my best friend Ryan, of a much different temperament altogether) inexplicably stood up, ran over to me, and kicked me in the nuts. Just like that. I dropped to my knees and gasped for breath, and was promptly chastised by the teacher for "causing a scene." "Quit your messing around and return to your seat," she yelled at me. I had no idea how to respond to this, but, once I felt like my generative organs had returned roughly to their proper configuration, I hobbled over to my desk and stewed in silence.
So, the actual story — we had these little checklist sheets where we were supposed to write down the title and author of each book we read, and there were certain awards and recognition for people who read 25 books a semester, and 50, and 75 , and so on. In principle, this should have been no problem — I was reading years ahead of my grade level, and read all the time. The problem, however, was in the measurement approach. My parents had recently acquired a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and between those, and shuffling through the dictionary learning cool new words, or reading National Geographic Magazine (because I liked all the stuff about animals and faraway countries), that pretty much made up most of my reading. Impressive for a second grader, by most considerations, but impossible to put on the little sheet ("World Book Volume 'M' just didn't seem appropriate unless I could actually say I'd read it cover to cover). Meanwhile, my classmates who were reading 50 page beginner chapter books were filling those sheets up like crazy.
Looking back on it now, I suppose the teacher's tone was intended to be playful, or motivating, or something (I was never very good at reading emotions as a kid, and still struggle with it sometimes even now, so I honestly have no memory data on how she said what she said), but to my second grade mind it came off as a threat, her exact wording being: "You'd better have read 75 books by the end of this semester, Matt." I wasn't sure what the implicit "or else" consisted of, but my imagination could conjure all kinds of terrible things.
I'd been given this little token of motivation just before leaving for Christmas break (the semester actually ending about 2 weeks after we returned in the new year), and so for those couple of weeks off, I worried myself into a frenzy. I was nervous during the day, and didn't eat much, and at night I barely slept. I was in a habit of listening to my radio when I couldn't fall asleep, so night after night my fits of anxiety were met with a Carly Simon / Crystal Gayle / John Denver / Jim Croce soundtrack of doom, and when I could no longer stand all that music because of the previous days' bad associations, I switched to Christmas music (not realizing that I was only broadening the scope of music that would be forever tainted by this little episode). It was the first time I'd ever heard that Christmas song "Silver and Gold", and I seldom hear it since, but consequently, the negative association with that particular song is so singular that when I do hear it, it almost invariably comes with a terrible fit of nausea and a sense of insurmountable impending dread.
Once more, probably not good information to ever make it into the hands of my enemies, but it's still fascinating how things like this work. (Incidentally, the thought never occurred to me to tear through a few dozen simple books over the Christmas break, which I could have easily accomplished, and probably would have enjoyed quite a bit had I started.)
Example songs included:
Crystal Gayle's "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" [shudder]
Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call That The Blues"
Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" (Honestly, I like a lot of his
songs, but these aren't two of them — I'm not quite sure how they
both got played in an hour's time)
Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle"
Some Lionel Ritchie song I never remember the name or words of
Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" (I have a Neil Young thing anyway)
Morning Has Broken — I'm not sure who performs this version, but it's not the Cat Stevens original. Maybe the English Congregation version? It sort of sounds like Peter, Paul, and Mary on tricyclic antidepressants.
There were others, but I'm not going to tempt fate by trying to unforget them.
Anyway, it was awful. Years of therapy couldn't erase the effects of that meal's unfortunate soundtrack from my tender psyche. Oh the humanity.
Speaking of therapy, there's a childhood trauma reason a lot of these songs just happen to be from the same era, and got locked into my brain as harbingers of emotional doom — and, before anyone draws too many conclusions, no I wasn't sexually molested by Julio Iglesias or anything quite like that, though that would make for a great story.
Maybe I should just leave it at that. "I may or may not have been sexually molested by Julio Iglesias as an eight year old. . . ." No, too much Springer potential there.
Alright, the real story. When I was in second grade, I had a teacher who particularly didn't seem to like me. Or maybe she liked me, but had a peculiar way of dealing with me — I don't know what. Anyway, to give you some context of my experience with her in general, on one occasion, I remember walking out of the boys' bathroom , and one of my classmates, a guy named Ryan (not to be confused with my best friend Ryan, of a much different temperament altogether) inexplicably stood up, ran over to me, and kicked me in the nuts. Just like that. I dropped to my knees and gasped for breath, and was promptly chastised by the teacher for "causing a scene." "Quit your messing around and return to your seat," she yelled at me. I had no idea how to respond to this, but, once I felt like my generative organs had returned roughly to their proper configuration, I hobbled over to my desk and stewed in silence.
So, the actual story — we had these little checklist sheets where we were supposed to write down the title and author of each book we read, and there were certain awards and recognition for people who read 25 books a semester, and 50, and 75 , and so on. In principle, this should have been no problem — I was reading years ahead of my grade level, and read all the time. The problem, however, was in the measurement approach. My parents had recently acquired a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and between those, and shuffling through the dictionary learning cool new words, or reading National Geographic Magazine (because I liked all the stuff about animals and faraway countries), that pretty much made up most of my reading. Impressive for a second grader, by most considerations, but impossible to put on the little sheet ("World Book Volume 'M' just didn't seem appropriate unless I could actually say I'd read it cover to cover). Meanwhile, my classmates who were reading 50 page beginner chapter books were filling those sheets up like crazy.
Looking back on it now, I suppose the teacher's tone was intended to be playful, or motivating, or something (I was never very good at reading emotions as a kid, and still struggle with it sometimes even now, so I honestly have no memory data on how she said what she said), but to my second grade mind it came off as a threat, her exact wording being: "You'd better have read 75 books by the end of this semester, Matt." I wasn't sure what the implicit "or else" consisted of, but my imagination could conjure all kinds of terrible things.
I'd been given this little token of motivation just before leaving for Christmas break (the semester actually ending about 2 weeks after we returned in the new year), and so for those couple of weeks off, I worried myself into a frenzy. I was nervous during the day, and didn't eat much, and at night I barely slept. I was in a habit of listening to my radio when I couldn't fall asleep, so night after night my fits of anxiety were met with a Carly Simon / Crystal Gayle / John Denver / Jim Croce soundtrack of doom, and when I could no longer stand all that music because of the previous days' bad associations, I switched to Christmas music (not realizing that I was only broadening the scope of music that would be forever tainted by this little episode). It was the first time I'd ever heard that Christmas song "Silver and Gold", and I seldom hear it since, but consequently, the negative association with that particular song is so singular that when I do hear it, it almost invariably comes with a terrible fit of nausea and a sense of insurmountable impending dread.
Once more, probably not good information to ever make it into the hands of my enemies, but it's still fascinating how things like this work. (Incidentally, the thought never occurred to me to tear through a few dozen simple books over the Christmas break, which I could have easily accomplished, and probably would have enjoyed quite a bit had I started.)