Tag Archives: School

Foosball

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I am having an existential moment.  I now like playing foosball more than reading a book, even if it is on an e-Reader–the coolest thing ever.  Its is in our basement–because when my husband determinedly refused to return the purchase–I made him compromise–either in the garage or in the basement.  My first reaction goes back to the days of sitting in dorm, when I wasn’t supposed to be, and was among the pool table, the TV, the Foosball, and the pinball machine. At the right time, all four machines would be on, and anyone would have to wait for a turn.

It was during these times that the most “epic” conversations would take place.  “Epic” is the term because we would venture to use words and ideas that we were in fact just beginning to study in our classes.  We would discuss, as in the salons of Paris, France, as if we were the Professional Wordsmiths and Ideologues that drove the invisible machine of thought and taste and popularity.  We would bet each other, upping the ante, to try to find the proof of our ideas and our favorite things.  If everything turned out true, and truly, we would have enough riches from the day to get a free pizza and a pop from the others.

Once, someone brought in the movie starring Robin Williams.  And, when we convinced the Lords of the TV to let us use it… even if they weren’t invited to watch, we immediately began the two-hour marathon, titled, “Dead Poets Society.”  There were few of us who had not yet seen it, and for the other couple of us who had seen it, it was considered “gold enough” to re-view.  The beauty of the movie is its very unconventional approach to being young and immortal.  No Professor of any type is ever sexy… And, for Williams’ students to fall in love with their Professor, is very unheard of.  This is not a Woody Allen movie where the nerdy, intelligent, and anxious intellectual courts his students and many other younger ladies.  This is a boy’s film… a man’s film, if you will.  The boys at the boarding school where Professor Williams  teaches, is ripe for intense drama and the bravery that leads to the bravery facing death.  It is, like the Classic Plays of William Shakespeare, a great tragedy.  The students may as well bathe in the blood of their brothers, as we all know, that secret societies are like this.

So, as the viewing ended, we sat quietly, now a late hour, and those of us who did not live in dorm, were, in fact broaching the rules.  But, we sat there, contented with the movie, and with the quiet all around us, we began to wonder…  “Was that ending necessary?”  Like all tragedies.. something always feels unjustified, after great effort, and great expenditure, should there not be a life worth living come from it?  Why does the victor die?  And, why, is it that we know, even after the death, that nothing truly is changed… Another hero will come, and this hero, too, will die, unjustified.  There is no life, in these Classical Plays that is worth living.  All lives are lost, and sacrificed, and given up.  And, of course, the secret is kept…  How many will go to hell…  and, How many will go to heaven?

Even recently, that I have caught, movies like “Gladiator,” and “Troy,” and “Armageddon” all have that classic hero myth that makes the hero a dead guy.  And yet, we love them!  So, thank you to the foosball table, which allowed me to hang around the room in dorm.  I made friends who shared their wealth of knowledge and talent with me.  I would never go to the movies by myself, but I wouldn’t mind mooching a couple of hours from others.  To even the score between the moochers and the givers, we could play a game of foosball and yell out our frustrations… making a night in the dorm room more fun and cheaper than going to the student lounge or one of the bars just off campus.

Now, being quite an expert Foosball player, I do challenge my son AND daughter, to the games.  But, I excuse myself…  I am trying to justify my husband’s crazy purchase!

Champagne

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The first boy I ever dated was a mistake. We met in the summer of our sophomore year.  And it was not even at school.  It so happened that he and I were separately joining the Red Cross as Youth Volunteers.  Sometimes, I admit this with shame and reluctance, but I was planning on being a doctor, and therefore, I was planning, this particular summer, my Curriculum Vitae for the review of the Schools of Medicine, starting with a great start at the Red Cross.

So, as the last school term was ending in June, I saw on the bulletin boards, the opportunity to join a Youth Committee that would involve itself in the business of the Red Cross.  I already held a job at the Public Library, as a Page, but, this volunteer position would be the first job I held that would require my performance to guarantee my position on the Committee for the following year.  This was an impressive leap for me. Where, my talents were really not required in any other job, being a part of a group of people who had to define their jobs to have a job to do, was something I saw as rewarding talent.  I was sure that I could do this job.

Now, the issue of my first boyfriend.  He had the same reasons for joining as I did.  We were the youngest in the group of people who became the first Volunteer Youth  Committee Members.  The others were also a mix of men and women, who were, also, in school, but they were mostly studying sciences at university.

We met as an official Committee once a month on Sunday.  I had to get up early, to go to a closed and locked office, and sit for an hour-and-a-half listening and joining debates on our activity and the justification of this activity.  In the winter, which was only part of my tenure for one season, we tended to not do any fund-raising work, but we concentrated our work, but we concentrated our work with the other youth volunteers, who worked during the weekends at the malls, to register blood donors and usher these people through the experience.  This was as close to an official job that I could get.  So, for the first summer, during the meetings, and our planned fund-raisers, I was busy.

My boyfriend and I met at the second official meeting.  It was the second meeting for me, but it was the first time he showed up.  We both rode our bicycles into the tiny parking lot, and, since this was before people thought of cyclists, we both rode up to the steel stair railing where we both intended to lock our bikes.  As I did not even make notice of him, he casually asked, if he could lock his bike with mine, as he forgot his lock.  Of course, since this was before the time I suspected criminals to be young and devious, I whole-heartedly agreed.  And, so, we locked our bikes together and went into the meeting.

Now, this was not how we actually became involved with each other.  We went home our separate ways at the end of the meeting.  We were not savvy enough to talk each other into dating.  And this leads me to the mistake.  About one week later, after this initial introduction, a physical confirmation of age and sex, I received a phone call.  It was the boy with the bike, and he had asked to lock it with mine.  Could he ask me on a date?

I was pleasantly surprised, and, not exactly smart enough to know that there was something illegal happening.  At leasst, not until the next meeting.  It seems, this boy called me, and several other girls who were affiliated with the Red Cross, as Youth, in different capacities.  He was able to call, in the first place, because he was able to “scam” the Receptionist into giving him the list with phone numbers.  The other girls were savvy enough and complained to the management at the office, and got an immediate response, which included a reprimand, of my first boyfriend, who was a mistake.

It was also a lucky summer and year serving at the Red Cross, as this boyfriend and I ended up dating for two years, and he ended up taking me to Prom.  This is a happy story, and, even though I like to think of myself as someone who is savvy, I really was not that lucky in dating.  I have been on more dates than is “legal” or advisable.  Now, though, I carry this experience with  me.  I carry it, because it is light and I feel grateful for being able to be part of people’s lives.  I sometimes look at this particular situation as “the one” that started it all.  I do, in this way, cherish him more than I cherish the others, as they were time and experience, again, beyond knowing what to do.  So, even though he is “technically” a “mistake,” he was probably the most real of my boyfriends.

We have no more contact with each other, and I have no more contact with any of the ones I did date.  And, as experience is, these dates become examples of life happening.  The more time there is between me now and me at a very young age, keeps increasing, and also, as time keeps increasing, I mention and look to these experiences even less.  I have become less obsessed with having lived that life!

So, I toast my glass to that life and drink champagne to enjoy the life that I have.  Cheers!

An Elixir For Love

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“I was thinking about an elixir for love, the other day.  It would make beautiful people I see–almost anywhere–just become attractive.  We would fall in love, and have the most wonderful life to live!  Why did I think of such an absurd thing?  I noticed that beautiful people and I were not attractive!  We were not attracting each other!”

This is a quote, and could possibly come from all the new dating sites that have sprung up in the past five years, everywhere.  It actually is something my son said to me, on his observation of life.  (It’s sort of a summer homework project, I gather.)  From being in school, everyone is in cliques.  “And this completely shuts people off from each other,” observed again, my son.  If someone in clique A wanted to talk to someone in clique B, then there would ensue a whole ruler-full of acitivity that would evolve into a whole set of political manoeuvring, set either to establish new clique rules or to completely destroy the social lives of the clique-rule-breakers.  This is high school for thugs, politicians, and the dating game.

When I heard him say these things, I immediately wanted to counter him with something truly more worthy of reality than what he said he sees.  And, if you have guessed correctly, I was not exactly able to make my case for the shallow lives of teenagers.

I also thought back to my high school days, and yes, his description of just this one feeling, is very accurate.  Almost every high school interaction is heavy, laden, with much prejudice, and attempts to be someone part of something important.  If not for one’s own self-aggrandizement, then, for protection against those who who held much “political power” to make life miserable.  Teenagers need to feel rich, able to drive the car, and if not, then, to be able to have friends who have cars.  This is the center core of every teenager’s hope in life.  They need evidence, that does not yet exist, of worthiness, money, and value.

So, what is with my son’s need to buy an elixir for love?  Our talk actually did continue.  It was not stopped and stunted without investigation.  He is not necessarily older and more mature in his few years, but he has heard the lectures nd the talk of those who are more mature and have more experience.  So, I asked him, what exactly he was thinking of when he used such a strong metaphor for his thoughts and feelings?  He said something surprising enough, that it surprised me a little.  His answer?  “We are always trapped in roles we do not like.”  He is blessed with the gift of the gab, like his mother, and I immediately thought of a million things to say to him, but, I thought carefully so that I would only say what could possibly made sense to a teenager.

“Are you doing something you don’t want to do right now?”

My son hesitated, and, I gather, to try to figure out what it was we were both saying to each other.  “Everyone just hates each other all the time!  Everyone is boring.  The girls are boring, and the guys get boring.  I hate ending up stuck at someone’s house, or hanging out in the cafeteria, because there’s always nothing to do.  And people just get boring!”

I took a deep breath. It seemed that there was something on his mind.  I was wondering if there was something unrequited?  He did not answer, and was a still statue.

So, I did prod him a little, and yes, it seems, that there was a girl that was hanging out close to him and his friends, but she never really responded to the things he said or to his flat out questions about just going to hang out with him.  He was getting frustrated, but since she did always end up hanging out, close to him and his friends, he was also getting confused.  He imagined that there could be an “elixir of love” that could just make everything clear!  This girl, then, would not be so confusing, and cause him so much heartache!

“And,” as he says, “attractive people would be attractive to each other!”

I commiserated with him.  Yes, he is experiencing something that not only teenagers face every day, but something that a lot of people face in life.  I applaud him for his insight into the matter, and suggested that the answer may not be the elixir, but for him to either wait for another year, or, to find an official school club for him and this girl to join together.  “Believe it or not,” I said, “some girls are very shy, even more shy than some boys!  Don’t give up!”

He seemed to be relieved.  I am hoping, right now, that the problem does have this answer, and not some other, terrible, unexplanable answer, that perhaps only someone like God can answer.

My son and I smiled at each other, and we gave each other confidence in each other.  I am again, blessed with an easy life, and I cross my fingers every day, that we remain such a happy, lucky, family.  And, if I could, I would bottle all this into an elixir called “life” and give it away to people, spreading the joy, and the freedom that comes with joy.

Adventures In Wandering

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Have you ever wandered in locked areas?  Like at school, or in a mall?  The thrill of being somewhere that you have discovered despite the best efforts of security, is tingly, and travels along the spine, and the hair on my arms and on the back of my neck raise up and stand.

Even now, I have temptations to open closed doors…. Or to try the door handle to see if it has been locked.  I will peer in, to try to see who is in the room….  To see what the room looks like… if it is in fact the Stationary Room, from which I can take a pen or two, or even a stapler.

As I have “matured” in my adulthood, this habit of opening closed doors is getting silly to play.  I am recognized where I go, because where I go that is different, and new, and worthy of door-opening adventure, are often other offices, like the office I sit in to do my job.  When going with my children, I will abstain from blatantly just opening doors, but on occasion I have found excuses to open closed doors, even when they are watching.

Even now, the biggest adventure I have had, was when I was still young.  As I get older, I find that exciting adventures are more had if you get on a plan and travel to another country.  Where things, and almost everything, is just different.  Being in these foreign countries is like being in someone else’s building.  If not their exact home.  There is some thrill to it.  But even these expensive adult adventures do not compare with my greatest adventure, yet, in opening a locked door.

I was in school at the time.  There were hundreds of buildings on campus, and I probably had been in a handful of them.  There were maybe a hundred that I could see when I walked to get to class, but I didn’t have the time of the knowledge to walk into them.  And, when during the beginning of my semesters, I would walk yet, to another building, I sometimes may have tried a door or two, and about up to half the time, the door would be locked.

About halfway through school, I decided that the main libraries on campus were becoming boring.  They were always packed with students, and the sense that I was one of the number of students that only stuck to the main and tried thoroughfares was beginning to make me feel what I knew was happening….  I was a number.

So, in no systematic way, except through guesswork, I started to pick buildings, hoping that I could walk into an open door to a library that felt a little less cavernous for the the purpose of blocking sun, wind, and snow, from the students inside.  Near the south end of campus was a stone building three stories tall, and with two bell towers.  It was greyish brown stonework with narrow, slatted windows.  The word “KNOX” had been carved into the stonework above the main door.  I guessed it was the “Knox Building.”

Well, I had seen it several times at least without deciding to explore inside.   So, one afternoon, with one of my classes unexpectedly cancelled, I needed to find someplace quiet to be.  Not doing readings until after the professor has lectured us his opinion, is not the best way to learn material.  So, with my newfound promise to read, because I had been spared, I immediately thought of the Knox Building.

It was not very far.  The weather was overcast, but not too cool yet.  I went up the dozen steps up to the two arched doors and pulled…..  Yes, it did open.  Inside, it was dim, and the ceiling was high.  So, from this look, I knew the main floor was two stories high.  There were no electric lights, just rows and rows of column windows.  Slatted so that the surface of glass was not large.  The foyer was not too big to make me feel too small.  It felt roomy, and if it had been lighted, probably I would feel a welcome.  There was no one around, so, when I say I got that thrill, this was it.

I really had not idea how big the building was, and is, but I was not in a hurry.  On my left, once I took a good look, I could see through another couple of arched doors, which had slatted windows build into the middle.  It was familiar to me.  It was a chapel, very large, with tall arched ceilings reaching three stories, higher than the ceiling in the hallway.  No one was inside, and it was quiet, and I swore to myself I knew the smell of a church chapel.  I lingered only a few seconds, looking straight at the altar, then to the smaller alcoves on the left and right.  When I turned to come back out, to the right hand side of the main doorway, was a wall with a row of windows, and out the windows I could see a courtyard.  So, with no real choice, I turned to walk forward into the building, more.

By the time I had walked around the main floor, passing many doors, I was unable to find any secret or excitement.  The doors were locked, or obviously, there were stairways that led to the basement….  I was not tempted to do that.  I decided to go through the doors that led to the courtyard.

When I entered, only fifteen minutes into my adventure in the Knox Building, I was met with an empty place.  There were stone pathways, and greenery planted into the lawn and along the surrounding stone walls of the building.  It was quiet.  No pigeons.  A bright day, without the shining sun.  No rain.  And no sound.  It was an outdoor library!  Unfortunately, again,  I was not tempted to sit there and study.

So much for my experience.  I had enough of mousing around, and just went to one of the libraries I knew.  In the end I got in a good forty-five minutes of reading before my next class.  Adventures like these are getting fewer, but I keep remembering the adventures I have had.  I will remember the smell of was candles as the wax is still hot.  And the idea of a lit candle as the flame dances, because close to the flame, it is very warm….  Leading to hot.  Now, if I glance through my bookshelves at home, I remember the marathon readings I did, and, I am glad that now, I can take all the time I want, to finish a book that I am reading.

My First Fiction

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The first time I wrote, I used pencil, thinking to erase everything wrong and making it perfect.  It was on ruled paper with the red line for a margin on the left hand side.  It is easy to feel creative when what is objectionable on the paper can be replaced with something real and beautiful.

I was a child whose hands could not span the space of the keys on a computer, or, even on a typewriter.  I was, nonetheless excited about writing something called a “story” or what is called “fiction.”  It was a simple story about going home after school.

It didn’t even take up for than a page, and I was “skipping lines,” or, as is the computer-speak, I was “double-spacing.”  I loved the story.  It was fun for me to write about one of the things that always made me happy….  And excited.   It was about home.  It was about change of time.  It was about having the control for myself to decide that I’d be leaving school and walking home.  It felt like I was making the decision.  It felt like the absolute right thing to do.

I handed it in to the teacher.  She had given us class time to write it….  The idea of homework in those olden times was objectionable.  It wouldn’t be until we were at least in grade five or six that there would be an hour of homework a night  and sorts of projects that parents were supposed to help out with.

We didn’t know what our teacher would really do with the stories, but, surprise, the next day, she returned them to us, fully marked with red pen and encouraging words written to support all the markings.  She told us to bring them home for our parents to read!  We were completely excited.  At least I felt like that, as I had always loved books and the stories that teachers read out loud to us, and story tellers told us.

In addition to the sweet,  sweet, chance to have my mom read it and tell me she loved it, was the chance the teacher surprised a few of us with.  Myself and three others were asked to read our stories out loud to the rest of the class!  I was in “Writer’s Heaven!”  Not only did I have the satisfaction of writing something fictional….  But I was going to have people hear (and if I included my teacher, people would read) my work, and I would have the glow of feedback.  These were my friends.  These were my peers.  And….  It was like an International Juried Fiction Prize had been awarded with the authority of my teacher all over the page I wrote!

At this age, I was not a good speller.  And, truly, it was not always the first thought on my mind.  Nonetheless, I knew what the words were. even though they were mis-spelt, so there was no difficulty in creating understanding when I read it out loud.  However, from this high and excitement of class, and then going home, I had quite a great fall.  I showed my mom the page, and she praised me for the work, creating agreement between my mom’s and my teacher’s points of view.  My mom even asked me to read it out loud….  And just like in class, I read it out loud.

We handily clipped this precious page to the fridge.  My pride swelled.  And, now, I was waiting for my dad to get home, and see it too!

As soon as I heard my dad unlock the door and come into the foyer, I happily ran to greet him.  He was excited to see me too!  I quickly told him to go look at the fridge and read my work!!!!

Within minutes, he called to me to come into the kitchen.  “Elissa,” he said, “Do you know something?”  And I was confused, and shook my head as a “No.”

“Well,” my dad said, “I think you have made a spelling mistake…  In fact two spelling mistakes!”

I confusedly shook my head…  “It looks like you don’t know how to spell ‘Arthur’ or ‘light’, “my dad said.”  “Arthur” was our dog’s name, and I had mis-spelled  “streetlight.”  My dad continued, “It is not perfect.  So, the ‘A+++’ your teacher gave you is not real…  You only made an ‘A’.”

My disappointment was great.  I think even at that time, when I was so young, I already thought of myself as a writer.  I was sure that I would always write.  I took a deep breath, and swallowed up my pride, being unable to try to counter argue with my dad.

Even now, when I am so lucky to have ‘Spell Check’ and an ability to read dictionaries, I find the need to double check all my spellings very important.  Sometimes, I nonchalantly disregard the highlighted red markings on the computer screen, but, I am never truly satisfied until I have “fixed” the spelling.

Secret World of Educational Societies

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“I want to see you pull yourself out of that bag!”  When my friend said this, I wanted to punch him as hard as I could in his upper right arm.  We had started the evening, close to dinner, and we had got off transit and were now walking towards Hart House.  It was an exciting evening for me, and I was imagining what it was going to be, being impressed by what it all was.

I had been carrying a big bag…  Big enough for my friends to continually call it “Elissa‘s Suitcase,” …for close to a year at that time.  I was also always digging in it to find all the little things that get lost in big bags–keys, lipstick, hand creme, mirrors, day timers, and the odd Novel that I happened to be studying.  There were also essentials that came and went, like umbrellas, extra totes, phone, transit tokens, and concert tickets.

On this particular night, we were going to “hang out” at the Hart House Graduate’s Lounge. A Jazz Band affiliated with the University’s Music Program were performing.  Friends of friends, and our friends, heard of the concert and we were all invited to go and sample the quality of the music.  Anything that is good and new, and that would make a student look smarter or richer always got my attention.  And, often, my financial support as well. So, with this mood and atmosphere, we were walking through the late spring evening chill, the night sky reaching into twilight.

When we get to the stone steps leading into the Victorian era stone building, kept warm by radiators and fireplaces, when the windows that swing open are shut, and we get into the line-up that has formed from the inside and is beginning to spill onto the stone steps.  Everyone in the line-up are our age….  Young adults….  Who have a certain type of sophistication.  That, that says, French beret on head of long hair, in leather and pants, and dark glasses (only glasses, if we don’t own those shades), even if, in North America, it is closer to being in a long shirt over leggings with hobo bag matching that cute leather jacket.  So, we fit in.  And we were excited.

The tickets to the concert were considered cheap….  Any concert any student could get into could cost over a hundred dollars…  buying not only an evening with the band, but an evening with proper acoustics, access to alcohol, and the chance to be milling with large groups of people who think like you.  So, we were thinking that having everything we could want, and paying less than fifty dollars for it was a true, “Score!”  We loved it, even before it had started!

We were excited!  We were not in line for very long.  We stood and move by inches for about five or ten minutes.  And, having our tickets checked by the ushers, we followed the sound and scent of people towards the lounge.  Once inside, there were bar stools, regular tables, and room for standers.  The lounge felt different than a regular bar because we were surrounded by wood, a heightened ceiling, and stone at intervals as well as at the fireplace. There were painted portraits of past deans and presidents.  And, I would’ve swore, the scent, alternating, of weed and vanilla cigarillos!

We preferred to sit on the bar stools, at tall, round bar tables.  It was difficult to spot, but the bar was against the wall  where we came in through the door.  My friend suggested he get us both each a beer, and I agreed.  I started rummaging in my big bag, and my friend, yet again, said in his sarcastic, derogatory tone…  “I want to see you get yourself out of that bag!”

“Oh…  You be quiet…!  And go and do your job!  It’s one beer for you and one beer for me!”  as I told him loudly, my bag fell, upside down, spilling everything of mine inside the bag on the sticky wooden slat floor.  It was my world with its secrets revealed  My things of importance, my things of worth, and all of it was getting dirty and getting dirty stares in a public drinking house.

I felt as if some random stranger had reached up my skirt and felt me up.  I felt dirty, and the situation disgusted me.  But my friend was nice.  He immediately came to his knees and began to help me pick up everything and put it back inside the bag.  As he stood up with the filled bag in hand, he said to me, “You have the best bag!  Love it!”

I wanted to say something derogatory to him…  But I didn’t.  He should know how to treat a girl who is his friend.  Betrayal is not a way to treat someone.

The rest of the evening was not bad at all.  We stayed the night and my friend was nice.  We still liked each other, and that was important….  I did not regret anything that happened.  The warmth and safety of where we were and who we were is what has kept this memory for me.  I think we will forever always be friends!  Whether or not I still have my big bag!