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I've been watching the news nonstop for three days.
I don't watch the news much... there is a lot that I would rather not know. But once I start watching, I get sucked in. I feel out of the loop the minute I realize there's a development I didn't know about and then I watch for two more hours to make sure nothing new happens. Anything that happens in a high school fascinates me. I am suspicious of anyone who says they had a good time in high school, I have yet to find someone who will admit to liking high school that I have anything in common with. High school is a popularity contest. In my school, if you were a loner in kindergarten you would be a loner for the next twelve years. It's not cool to hang out with loners, even when you're five, and it never gets cool. On the news, they keep mentioning, "Extreme anti-social behavior." ...and why doesn't someone do something when they see a kid being "extremely anti-social." Yeah, I'd like to know too. But the truth is, nobody notices. We will always be there, hiding in the back of the class, not talking to anyone, hoping somebody notices something. My teachers noticed me because of my grades... they didn't notice the way my whole face was pulled downwards, or the way I fingered the cuts on my wrists all through class. I cut myself during class once, I was sitting in the front row. She didn't notice. I wasn't just looking for attention, I was begging for it. Kids are not anti-social by choice. They're anti-social because it is the only way to deal with being rejected. If no one wants to be your friend, you pretend you never wanted them anyway. My mom has a problem with kids getting hurt. She can't watch it. If it involves a child being hurt, kidnapped, in any pain at all... my mom changes the channel. Except for sometimes when she doesn't. And then she tells me she doesn't know what's wrong with our country and how could a kid do something like that. I don't tell her that I understand. In eighth grade, I never wanted to go home. So I stayed after school whenever they had a late bus- every tuesday and thursday. j.a. and I would hang out in the band room or the art room or just in the hallway, anything was better together. But her mom always picked her up... I was on my own on that late bus. I can't even remember what we did that day. I sat in a seat on the right side of the bus, and I was looking out a window on the left side of the bus. I don't remember what I was looking at. But the girl sitting over there saw me, and thought I was staring at her. She called me a lezzie... this during the period I was thinking, "Oh my god, what if..." ...I got so paranoid, I thought it showed. And then that girl, I didn't really know her and I don't remember her name, told her friends to spit on me. They did. and then one of the girls started chewing bubble gum to spit in my hair, when someone finally got off the bus and I could move up front. I did, and they didn't follow me. I got off the bus at my house, washed my hair and scrubbed my face three times and I could still feel it. I never told anybody that before, not even j.a., although I'm pretty sure she heard about it. I was humiliated. And that really wasn't the worst incident. one of the worst, yes, but not the worst. I internalized the anger. I blamed myself- I thought that's what I deserved. And I had one friend. If just a little bit were different... if I had somewhere learned to express my anger instead of swallowing it, if i had gotten angry instead of depressed... and if I had had a gun... I hated them enough. I hated myself more, but I hated myself because of them. They were the ones who deserved to be hated. I'm convinced there are two types of people- the type who get angry at other people and the type who get angry at themselves. If you get angry at yourself, you'll get depressed, not violent. But it's just a small personality quirk. It's just luck that it was them and not me. That said- there is a law that if you have an inground pool, you have to put a fence around it. Even if you don't have kids, even if you don't know anyone who could wander into that pool and drown. You still have to put a fence around it. A lot more people die from guns than swimming pools, but last I knew there was no national pool association lobbying in congress. There should be a law that all guns must be locked up. I'm an idealist but I'm not stupid- that would never pass. So write in an exception that says you can have one small handgun out for protection, probably in the bedroom, and it can be loaded but the bullets have to be locked up. That would limit someone to the number of shots in one gun... and I don't know anything about guns, but I don't think that's enough to massacre an entire school. And erase the grandfather clause in the assault weapons ban. If police could confiscate all the assault weapons they come across, if it were suddenly made illegal to own one period... that would help. But besides that, I don't know what would possess someone to keep a loaded gun in their house. Don't people look at statistics? They're more likely to lose a family member to that gun than save one using it. A lot of days, I think I care too much, and other days I think I don't care enough. Intellectually, I know it's not my responsibility to stay glued to MSNBC empathizing... but intellect doesn't have much to do with tragedy. ~me |