1985

besides starting and quitting band, 1985 brought to my life plenty of moments of what are best retrospectively acknowledged as "character-building" events. my 5th grade teacher was artistic. this meant we too had to try to be artistic. this also meant, apparently, that if we weren't, we were second-class citizens in the classroom and every day was open season on the artless. i was artless. i had previously suspected it, but lest i have any genuine self-respect left at the end of the school year, my teacher made sure that i knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that i was as artless as the tree that i couldn't draw. once we had to paint an outdoors scene on a mirror and frame it. i painted a bear on an iceberg. it was a sad and lonely floating bear, but i tried. dimension wasn't my thing. still isn't, really. but as many 10 year old girls trying to protect some shred of ego during the ugly years will do, i must have mumbled my way through the project claiming that i wasn't even trying and that this was a dumb project. the next day, my gray polar bear was on display in the art window outside the classroom next to all the beautifully crafted outdoorsy-type paintings. it was parent-teacher conference week. i scowled at my teacher when i entered the classroom and he said, "that's what happens when you don't even try." i think i managed to not cry in front of him. i think i even laughed. of course, i had painted the best gray polar bear i knew how to paint, and i walked away thinking he really put it in the window because he likes it, he was only teasing me because he knew i said i wasn't trying. oh, the fallacies we'll create in the name of self-protection. i faked stomach pain on every art day thereafter. that is, until the stomach pain became real, then i just stayed home and read books. i read a lot of books.