my so-called life

I have been watching, on DVD, the short-lived television series "My So-Called Life". My daughter and I watched it, both of us rapt, when it was on. Katie was in the fifth grade and we both felt that it was close to what she could expect in adolescence. I remember, now, that Katie thought the mother was a super bitch; she probably was too polite to say the mother reminded her of me. Although I don't think of my daughter as very much worried about being polite to me, like, ever.

Anyway. I'm watching it. I comb the netflix database for television shows to watch.

It's ostensibly about high school but it feels a bit like my life. In the past year or so, I have tried some dating, after a twenty five year hiatus. I was more mature about guys when I was a teenager than I am now.

I watch DVDs sitting in my easy chair. I have a bunch of photos of my teenager taped to the wall. Some of the photos are ones from when she went to dances, coming down the stairs, her hair done up and lots of makeup. I am such a fucking moron. I thought I had tricked the Christmas ghosts this year. I thought I had sailed right through this one. I thought I was so clever, getting a bunch of netflix DVD's. I doubled my membership for this month, eight-at-a-time so I could anesthetize myself. Ha-ha-fucking-ha. Everything hurts. And I am eating bad food. And I skipped swimming today, always a bad sign.

I don't want to feel anything. I don't want to want anything. I don't drink alcohol or do drugs. If I can't escape with movies, I turn to food. I've been eating badly for a couple of days and I keep hearing myself resolving to go on a food bender. I guess it is okay to hate myself for a day or two but it's a slippery slope. What if I start sliding and don't stop? What if I outgrow my new jeans? I gave away all my jumbo clothes. I hate my so-called life.

Watching this show was a mistake. I don't know what I was thinking. It put me right back to living with my kid when she was in the fifth grade and I still thought I was going to have her forever. I shoulda seen that coming. Plus it hurts to compare my pathetic date life with the kids in the show. Does anyone, like, ever, get the dating/mating game right, and have, like a good time?

The show also reminds me of Katie's high school years. There is a great character in the show, Ricky, a more-or-less openly gay boy. This was the mid-nineties. Open homosexuality was pretty new. It is cool that they included this character in the show. Homosexuality was not new to me and the kid. My baby brother, her best uncle, is gay. And for a long time, my best friend was a lesbian named Joni and Katie thought I was gay. Gay was always cool for us.

Once, in her sophomore year in h.s., Katie asked a gay boy to one of those dances where the girls asked the boys. Rob was his name. Rob lived with his father because his mother threw him out of the house for being queer and his father openly despised him for being gay but at least he gave him shelter. And these ogre parents still popped for the fancy prep school, it's not like they totally abandoned the kid. And it was easy for me to be accepting of Rob's homosexuality, heck, he wasn't my kid, right? But still, Rob thought it was cool that Katie could tell me her date for the dance was gay. When he came to pick her up, I brought up his homosexuality. I was such a geek. Maybe he brought it up. Maybe he said it was a surprise to him that I didn't seem to care if katie went out with a gay boy and i said, well, wouldn't a gay boy be safer than a straight one? And I also told Rob to be patient, that once he got to college, being gay would get a lot easier. And he said that he sure hoped so and he was going to college in California. As I have watched this television series over the past few days, Rob has come to mind. I wonder if he is still on the West Coast. I recall that he was headed to a university in Redlands, California