I don’t yet know if I support Barak, but he’s the only person with an actual plan to get out of Iraq–timetable and all. Here’s a petition in support of his plan.
Zodiac was unsettling. It’s not giving away anything to say that it’s about the search for the Zodiac serial killer in California, in the late 60′s to 70′s.
The two girls he killed that were shown in the film had “neat” hair, and wore clothes that frankly had been fashionable in New York several years earlier. “Neat” as in not messy, not hippiesh.
One was cheating on her husband and some details in the movie showed that she might not have been the all-American girl, radio call in viewers portrayed her as. They thought Haight-Ashbury should be the place the police looked.
That’s actually the point. Girls and guys were typed as “nice” and/or “good” not by action but by how we dressed and how we wore our hair.
Stereotypes ran rampant and still do about that time. When I first began to do political blogging I was amazed by the number of “liberal” bloggers just a bit younger who assumed that most anti-war protesters hated the troops who were called soldiers even if they weren’t in the army, and threw rocks or eggs as a matter of course.
Why? If you don’t believe in violence why would you want to hurt a troop member? I came from an affluent town where 99% of all students went on to college. Honestly, I didn’t know guys, and they were all guys who went into the service. I knew them after they came out.
Every single guy I knew, who had been in Viet Nam came home deeply disturbed. The VA had no special services for them. The Armed Forces didn’t try to ease their pain and help them adjust to life in America.
Damn hippie scum did that. I only had two Vet friends; one was my best friend, Shelby’s, boyfriend her first three years of college, and the other was “every body’s” friend and/or responsibility. After my husband and I separated, I moved in with old friends who I didn’t know had turned into Lesbian junkies. I wasn’t home much and it took me months to figure out. The second Vet seemed to come along with the house.
Yes I think and thought that there was plenty wrong with shooting heroin. It would have been very nice had they told me that their sexual preferences had changed. While I didn’t disapprove my sexual preference was still straight.
I’m writing about this time in my life now, for my book, and it’s hard because I see it through adult eyes I become scared that I will not write it as it really happened, to me, but as a revisionist who doesn’t completely approve of some of the things that I did, and would take back one horrible thing I did. I would have taken it back as soon as I did it
I have no idea why I picked up a gorgeous guy and brought him back to my dorm room when a close, male friend was sleeping in the next bed.
It’s the absolute worst thing that I have ever done and takes me out of the running for any, she was a wonderful hippie award, though many people knew this story, and liked me anyway.
I am totally not ashamed of sleeping with–well, Shelby counted for me. I am ashamed of picking somebody up when I had company sleeping in the room
No, I wasn’t a nice girl. I was screwed-up, troubled, a bit too sexy, and that night definitely a bit too available. I was polite, generally sweet and good, and in total awe of my own life.
I don’t regret having slept with too many boys. My boyfriend and I broke up every three weeks for three weeks. Sometimes we would last six weeks and break up for six weeks. We were petty even on the number of weeks on and weeks off.
It was a very schizzy time in my life. I had no idea who or what I was. One semester I would do incredibly well, the next semester my English teacher actually followed me to tell me how great I could be, how filled with potential I was, if I would only come to class occasionally.
In high school, my English teachers thought that I was mediocre. They didn’t understand how I got such great achievement, standardized testing and state exam scores. Only two teachers, an art and a science teacher and my guidance counsellor thought I was filled with potential.
Everybody else thought I was maybe Junior College material and it was too bad I was so bad at anything approaching secretarial skills.
College was the first time since Third Grade where the teachers believed in me. I wasn’t ready to be a student then, and wouldn’t be until I was 23 and went to my third college.
My first college was all about having fun, and I don’t regret that. Just before I dropped out my Junior year, I wrote a poem that I vaguely remember about the party having lasted too long.
To get into the right mood, I listen to CD’s from then and play You Tube videos.
I’m giving my blog a face lift because I need to in order to continue blogging. I feel disconnected from it as I need to expend the energy into my book(s). If I don’t play this out to the finish line I will always wonder a bit too much.
i really have to stick to posting twice a week and reading blogs two or three times a week at the most. If I don’t, find a way to shoot me.
Zodiac was really about obsession, of the solving mysteries and writing about them, kind. I took looking for the killer as a metaphor for understanding anything that seems incomprehensible. Maybe I needed to see it as that.
Yesterday I was reading about the need to obsessively write in order to have a decent first draft. As much of my memoir reads like fiction, I need to treat it as fiction. Not in the sense of making things up. It’s all based on my memories and thus my perception.
I was desperately trying to keep this part of my life out of it. But that’s when it began.
I’m not ashamed of it. But people that were in my life then are still in the I adore them category and don’t want to hurt them. Hey if you and your boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, broke up every thee weeks, still got married for a hot sec and are still friendly wouldn’t you find that weird? The whole thing, not just writing about it. I do have his written permission to say anything. He might deny it because that’s the type of guy he is–I tape or threaten to tape our phone calls, but…
Pia: Have no fears. You’re not losing me just after you found me. I received your email, and I was touched, you fine roaster you!
Needless to say, though, concerning this post: I think you should be commended for sharing so much of yourself within its lines. What saddens me, though, is that we live in a world where a woman must feel judged by her sexual actions on a different standard than her male counterparts. The feelings you hold inside are what so many other women feel. Why must one gender berate themselves over what both participate in?
May you have the courage to continue writing and to call yourself “a writer”. She who writes is a writer. One does not need to be published to stake claim on the title. Though some may find you mediocre (or in my case, insane), write on.
As someone once told me: If you feel the need to write, someone will feel the need to read you.
It’s very true.
Just when I want you to keep going …..it stops…
You are my antithesis in many ways, only one being that I only wish I had slept with too many boys.
So many things to comment about in this post. So many observations that hit home. I think that as I become older and look back on the college experience I find it was tainted by a comment one of my “after college” boyfriends made. And I held on to that shame for a long time. Now I realize I was just like most everyone else from that time. I hung around with the heads, therefore did not understand there were a lot more straights than heads! Haha! The only Vets I knew were the ones at college on the GI bill. They were messed up. They used a lot of drugs. We all did. Please keep blogging and I look forward to the post that tells us your book is being published.
Why regret any of it? I mean, other than getting out of Iraq.
I’m with Cooper. Wanted you to keep going. Left us wanting more.
I’ve had those on-again off-again relationships. That’s one thing I’d rather not have in common with you
I don’t know if it’s weird or not, but I’m very interested in hearing more about the vets you knew. Do I have to wait for the book?
I had a great getting out of Iraq plan once. I called it my “not going in” plan. Oh well. No one ever listens to me.
Zeus, thanks. I never felt ashamed of my sex life I hope that I never judge it through today’s lenses
Cooper you have a wonderful self image. While I don’t regret having been so sexually active, I did worry about ramifications. If it were today I would be a wreck
Mary thanks–realize I have to do a post explaining what “straight” meant then–two meanings not used today and again thanks
Doug–how many times do I have to say, I don’t regret it. Except for the Iraq part. Was personally responsible–being a Cancer like Bush
Overly Roasted Bone, of course
No, you’re copy editing it, aren’t you?
TonyG—good plan
I am always either agreeing with cooper or agreeing with you. You are going to give us free copies yes?
It sounds like a scary sort of surreal time, I can visualize it.
you do bare all, don’t you Pia. I can feel your shame about inviting the guy home with another guy sleeping in your dorms–I never stayed in dorms, apartments meant you had your own bedroom…
Few of my high school teachers thought I was going anywhere. But my first semester in college, there were a couple of profs who affirmed and pushed me and I’ll always be grateful.