...well, not exactly. But this is something I wrote in my Journal long ago and didn't post on the blog cos I felt it was too personal. I have removed ONE line, but those good enough to know it already know it, so that's ok.

HIGH-SCHOOL

I’ve always been a quick-witted one-liner making guy who knows where to puncture peoples’ egos, but unfortunately, whilst I’d like to say it’s because I’ve thought about it at length and I’m really clever, it is because, as Liam reminded me recently, I was an abusive prick as a kid. I’m not entirely sure why I was so abusive – verbally abusive, incidentally – because I didn’t have much wrong with me. True, my parents divorced, my best friend at my school in Richmond used to beat me up and I was constantly called gay from year 7 onwards... but looking back, none of them even bother me or bring back painful memories/feelings at all, which suggests that I was being angsty about it either because I was completely unaware that it could happen (and to be fair, I’d never stumbled upon insults like that beforehand, despite the fact that I used to kiss my best male friend on the cheek all the time. And no, I don’t think there’s homoerotica involved, because he lives down the street now, ironically, and I’ve never felt anything even on bordering on “Oh, he’s attractive” before. You may be thinking, “The man dost protest too much”, but it’s because it’s simply not true, and I’ll elaborate on my own actual flaws and foibles later on...), or simply because I thought that I was supposed to act like that. To be fair, I was never bothered by my parents’ divorce – more bothered actually in my later years by choice of stepmother – but still, it’s a strange one.

So, my flaws shall be made clear. For one, I’m often ridiculously arrogant and willing to blow up at slight things, despite the fact that I’m getting over that. Interestingly, I didn’t have that as a kid, either – I suspect it was something that emerged after my angsty stage to combat this. Secondly, I’m a skinny little shit too, ridiculously so. Some may find me attractive, but let’s see, I’ve also got quite yellow teeth, including two down the bottom that, whilst not my fault, are ugly as fuck anyway (assuming that fucking is actually an ugly act – I wouldn’t know, I just like that turn of phrase). I’m also ridiculously lazy. In fact, I had an assignment due on Wednesday that I didn’t do because I didn’t have the background in the Cold War climate in sufficient capacities to do it, and nor did I do the one due today, because I never bothered to get the required books at the start of the semester (despite Marco offering to pay for them... the only one I ever got was ironically for a course I ended up quitting the next week) and because I was far too sick to do it. Regardless, it doesn’t excuse me.

As a kid, too, in my strangely sheltered (though not in a deliberate way... it wasn’t an act by my parents, it was simply that I was off in my own world and naive in ridiculous extremities) way, I also wore my pants at a ridiculously high level from primary school to the beginning of year 9, as well as my shirt being tucked in, which made me look really unhealthy (I was an honestly ugly kid – you just have to see the photo of my confirmation at Nana and Keg’s to see that). This was never commented on throughout years 7 and 8, though I’m sure it wasn’t unnoticed. It was, however, right from the start of year 9, and although I immediately compensated by a) flaring up about it and finally b) conforming but wearing my pants so damn low that my underpants were completely invisible, I never escaped the spectre of this. Even my best friend’s younger brother, who wore his primary school uniform with respect and in fact had his pants sort of high, would refer to me as Harry High Pants, so presumably my friend told him about that for a laugh or two (this isn’t me being bitter, for reasons I’ll elaborate on later). When I entered year 10, I immediately let it all out to make a good impression, and although I had a better entry, I had unfortunately developed rather unsavoury traits too...

See, in years 7 and 8, I got into fat jokes. This was mainly because two of my friends were fat – or one was chubby, and the other was fat – and they constantly threw insults at each other about who was fatter. I was right in the middle of this, so I picked up on it and worsened it. Worryingly, this was completely uncalled for. Insults are anyway, but... in year 7, or the start of year 7, it made a sort of sense. I entered the playground, complete with Pokemon card collection (which none of us ever bloody played, of course) and started trading with a kid called Deccarado (that was his last name, or something similar... I won’t bother to try and discover how it’s probably spelt, because I can protect the mostly-innocent anyway). As I showed off my shiny Kangaskhan, I left it on the top of my card pile and went to put a finished banana peel in the bin (which I incidentally never properly finish, but never mind). When I came back, the card had gone. I asked where it was, and he said the wind had blown it away. I became immediately suspicious, for a number of reasons. First of all, there was no wind that day. Secondly, he wouldn’t let me see his cards. Thirdly, he stopped trading with me right away and didn’t talk to me again that day. Fourthly, a couple of days later he brought in his entire collection... including a shiny Kangaskhan. By this stage, being friends with the two fat guys, I’d told them this too and they cottoned on immediately too. We started a running joke about him being a thief.

One of the fat guys – who was chubby, not fat – was called Alvarez (last name). Just like with Gianni and his Italian roots, Alvarez and I technically shouldn’t have been friends at all, but of course that was never an issue, nor did we even refer to it. We mainly became friends because we were two new kids in the year (most of the kids started at year 5, in case you were wondering... the Xavier’s school system was a tad odd), and we shared many interests, including Pokemon, video games in general, and Animorphs. I still remember the day when he rang me in considerable stress and told me that the copy of book #51 (‘The Absolute’) that he’d just picked up had on the front cover, “Only three books until the end”, and we were hugely distressed about this. I remember, too, after we’d finished the series, months later we briefly chatted about it and some of our other semi-friends (that doesn’t mean I only considered them friends but not best friends, it simply means that we vaguely hung out but not often) asked what happened at the end. When told that Rachel died, they were depressed for the rest of the day.

Anyway. Presumably due to my crap sense of wearing my uniform, it started becoming a running joke in the group that Alvarez and I were gay. Interestingly, this was entirely separate from the running joke that the “cool people” had about all of us being gay. Regardless, for some reason, this began to distress me. I remember, after a long time where Deccarado got sick of us calling him a thief, he went to see the counsellor about it and we were all hauled in to talk to her. By this stage, I’d discovered the word “skulduggery” in the dictionary (meaning “trickery”) and we’d started calling him Skulduggarado. Strangely, the counsellor was wary of using the full insult – even to me, alone – and insisted on saying “Skul” instead... and then went on to refer to other cases of bullying, including, in her own casual words, “Oh, like the other students call Duckett ‘Nicholas Fuckit’”, which shocked me for a long time (we laughed about it afterwards). Anyway, I eventually broke down in tears and described how I’d been bullied about Alvarez and I apparently being gay – well, not bullied, but name-called. Interestingly, I’d never actually been bothered by it before, so my bursting into tears was one of two things. As I told the guys later (because she told Alvarez I’d cried, goddamn her... does she not understand how kids would use this knowledge?), I was faking to get off lightly, and in fact this was true, or at least half-true, because I remember thinking that at the time. But secondly, it was also because it was the first time a teacher had ever reprimanded me for anything beyond a lack of diligence in homework (although I was surprisingly diligent at the time), and also because it was the first time someone had tried to crack beneath my exterior. To be honest, it was a really shocking attempt – in fact, I don’t think she even was trying, I think I was just paranoid – but the fact that anyone would bother was what got me. Despite the honesty in these pages, and my openness about things like masturbation, I don’t like people attempting to crack my inner layers purely because it makes me depressed, and I hate being depressed because a) it’s not fun and b) it chucks me in with another lot of people who are depressed and angsty for pointless and trivial reasons (this doesn’t include Carrie, assuming she ever reads this; she was perfectly entitled to feel depressed, and I say that honestly, not just because she’s my friend and I’m ridiculously attracted to her).

Again, anyway... the insults stopped, by and large, on me, or at least they did in our inner group. The nastiest thing anyone in our group could say to me was, really, “God, why don’t you just get Pokemon Silver already?”. I was still being vaguely insulted and looked down upon by the cool group, who I never got on with anyway (more because I allowed my prejudice to bubble over ridiculously... I think I expected them to start being nice first, when I was more likely to insult them than they were me), but for some reason I kept on insulting people in our actual group. Actually, it’s not “for some reason” because I know perfectly well why I did it... power, and the ability to throw it off me. Now that I was practically untouchable, it was time for me to give as good as I had back, which of course is horrible. The fat jokes continued – mostly against Alvarez, strangely, though perhaps it’s because he was actually my best friend, and a damn good one at that - to the point where we called him “everything”. I had two strokes of inspiration in this department... at one stage, I realised that his last name was theoretically “A to Z” and played on that with the everything bit, and on another occasion, I was sitting in their car as the dad drove us to his house (shows how grateful I am) when it happened. Alvarez regaled a story about finding $100 in a park and using it to buy money for his friends, to which I replied immediately, “Well, there’s a first time for everything.” This was met with a nod, then a sudden realisation and amused scowl. In fact, Alvarez never seemed insulted by these, which makes it seem even more pointless that I continued – he was obviously too far above that. Whilst I said that they were two strokes of inspiration and they were undoubtedly quick-witted, I’m not at all proud of them.

The thing that Liam reminded me of was no doubt during my attendance at school in years 7 and 8. I have vague memories of going to a skatepark at one stage, but not of this actual event. According to Liam, this is what happened:

Back in the days when Liam took up skateboarding, he and I (at one of Alex’s rugby matches, I believe – and I just accidentally wrote “ruby matches”, as if Alex constantly engaged in fast, furious and utterly cool Pokemon championships) went off to a skatepark, as I said. Apparently, whilst Liam was there kick flips and flipping kicks and doing tricks that were named after fruit (which I always found strange – how is it that something as “cool” as skateboarding constantly used fruit like “melon” to name its tricks and not brands of alcohol, for instance?), I was sitting around watching. Near us were two girls, one of the “cute and ditzy” sort (Liam’s words, but he’s quoting Dave, actually) and one was normal weight, but apparently ever so slightly chubby. The ever so slightly one apparently fancied me, so she called out, “Hey, come sit here next to me” and I immediately retaliated “You’re so fat that I’m already sitting next to you.” If Liam sustained any injury that day, it was from falling off his board when hearing that comment. The girls didn’t care, supposedly, but I still find it horrible that I said that. As you can see, I was an innocent yet nasty piece of work.





...yeah, I never finished this. But savour! Savour indeed!

I did of course forget to write about the part where I was raped as a child by a naughty caterpillar, but hey, you probably don't want to know.