A ‘Brief’ History of Timmy, Part V

Freshman Year is typically when I say that I decided to change myself. I let people push me around. I was shy. I was passive. And such. I needed to be more assertive. Part of me feared becoming… well, not nice. I was afraid I’d lose myself. I just a boy, in High School. And, for the first time in my life, I didn’t like going to school. I used to LOVE going to school. I mean, what else am I going to do with my day?It didn’t happen overnight. But, it is something that happened.

I should remember more from freshman year, but I don’t. I remember foods. Me, Silva, Shawn Meadows, and Matt Robinson. Yes, I had to include last names. It’s just how I operate. I remember one incident. At the time, I was still quiet, and only showing flashes of weirdness.

“Blow me.” – Silva
“Bromine?” – Timmy
“What’s Bromine?” – Shawn
“An element.” – Silva
“An elephant?” – Shawn
“Yeah, an elephant named Bromine.” – Silva

Had to be there. Or not, maybe it is kinda funny on it’s own merit.

Xmas that year, Wendi got me …And Justice For All. I consider that to be my first real CD. I didn’t know what to expect. I popped it in my stereo, and played Metroid for Game Boy. Not far into Blackened, I realized, “Wow, this shit is good.” Shortly after, I would buy every other Metallica album. Wendi already had Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets, and I would steal them often. Eventually, I’d buy my own copies. The only other album I can say that for is CCR: Chronicle.

Continuing the trend from Middle School, I was still dumbing myself down in a meager attempt to get attention. Acting like an idiot.. just because. Like the time in foods when I was reading something, and purposely walked into something. I believe a cabinet. Naturally, it actually looked like I didn’t know it was there. *laughs* Foods was one of the only redeeming classes of that year. I remember I did the dishes, because nobody else wanted to. I’m the bitch. *laughs* Sure, teacher said we should rotate who does shit. We kind of ignored her. The only quarrels were when they argued over who should dry. *shakes head* I remember Word Processing and finishing shit early. I remember when my Spanish teacher, Senor McLoud got prostate cancer. That fucked us over because we didn’t learn as much. It’s funny, Spanish was the ONLY honors class I was in.

I’m not sure exactly what motivated me to do it. It was right after my last final. I sat down with a notebook and… started my first journal. On June 17, 1998, it began: “Welcome to the summer of 1998. At 9:00 AM, this morning, I finished my science final. Listening to the Black Album, as I write this, I realized that Mr. Smith was right. This Freshman year in High School has breezed by.” Maybe it was me knowing that my life was flying right past me. I specifically remember Karen Sandborn saying, on my first day of High School, “These are supposed to be the best years of our life?” A collective “Yeah right.” was echoed through my homeroom.

I had my door open, and I was writing on the floor. Wendi noticed me and asked what I was doing, then asked if she could read. Seeing as how I had JUST STARTED, her question seemed rather pointless. She’s never again asked me about my journal. That first journal was kinda stupid. I psychoanalyzed my little cousin, Rojesh. (Eshwar’s first kid.) I wrote about each volume of Cool Music I was doing. But. I censored myself, heavily, out of fear that my parents would find it.

Sophomore Year can effectively be split into two parts. There’s BeforeTheFirstCrush, and AfterTheFirstCrush. BeforeTheFirstCrush is marked by this silly Ellis Island re-creation thing. See, we couldn’t ACTUALLY GOTO Ellis Island, out of fear that the school would lose it’s entire sophomore year class. So. They just had some people in the grade above us taunt us and torture us. We were supposed to create a persona and go in as it. Who was I? I was Xavier. A poor farmer from some country I can’t remember. Oh, and I liked to burn churchs. *twitches* *smiles* You didn’t fail if you got deported. It was just a matter of holding your character up. And mine didn’t have much depth.

Where did I come up with the idea to burn churches? Obviously, my atheistic streak had already kicked in. I can pinpoint when it all began. World Cultures. Miss Scott was doing a poll of beliefs in the room. She asked if anybody was atheist. I had NO IDEA what it meant. Keith Hatcher raised his hand so I thought, “Hmm. Can’t be that bad.” and I raised my hand. I went home that night and looked “atheist” up in the dictionary and said, “Oh wow, that’s me, alright.”

I’ve never been a religious person. My mom’s Presbyterian. *twirls finger* I remember Summer things. Um. I remember my first day of Sunday School, in 1st grade. I have no idea what got into me. All I remember is that I put a pen in a pencil sharpener and.. that was the end of that.

I’ve never taken the concept of a deity seriously. I just, can’t. As a kid, it was like this giant joke that everybody went along with. “Nobody actually believes this, right?” “Oh yeah, almighty being that can see, hear, and know all? You gotta be pretty wacko to believe that.” And so religion was never really something I thought about. I was doing just fine without it. I had a good sense of right and wrong without thinking, “Will this get me into heaven?”

I probably wouldn’t have even thought about my atheistic nature much if I hadn’t met Max. He’s an atheist Jew. He was smarter than me and obviously thought about shit a lot more than I did. He once said to me, “You’re not really online unless you have BOTH AIM and ICQ.” This was 1998, mind you. Max and I discussed random things, like porn. He once talked to me on the phone about he believe things had a “life force”. Now that I think about it, that is a lot like entelechy. (Thank you, Philosophy of Science.) Max moved the summer after Sophomore Year, and he would continue to intellectually dominate me up the ass until the end of Senior Year. I was changed primary screennames, and I IMed him to inform him. When I didn’t identify myself, he gave me the “one-two-block.” Screw him, he once said that forests aren’t making any money, and that we should charge people to use parks. Long story, as are most things.

Another notable from that year was Word Processing with Sweaty Stallion. I’d hide his mouse and make him look for it. Or open every program on his computer. *laughs* I’m an annoying little shit like that. I’d finish all the assignments early. I can type like a fucking madman. I took that class for an easy A, duh. In my spare time, I’d listen to moozac on my walkman (Shh, against the rules), and.. write. What did I write? I know I once did the lyrics to Enter Sandman. Eventually, I started writing silly commentaries, stuff like, “If the biggest problem in the world is the President getting BJ’s, the world is in pretty good shape.” Sweaty Stallion, referencing the Simpsons, joked that I was writing my Memoirs.