2001-01-03

Fuck volleyball

For the past couple of weeks I was getting really stressed out about maintaining this diary. I didn't want to post an update just for the sake of posting something, and that in turn got me all bunged up trying to think of something worth writing about. Up until yesterday, I was debating the possibility of indefinitely shelving the thing -- trying to come up with a way of saying just that without making it look "needy," you know: (wrist to forehead) "Oh, I just don't think I can do this anymore, but maybe if all 8 of you bombard me with emails about how awesome I am I'll plow dutifully along....sigh..."

But then, last night, in desperation, I fell back on Old Faithful, that veritable emotional geyser of mid-80's angst: my high school diaries.

These two slim volumes, covered in faded floral fabric and fair-to-bursting with cheesey teenage tripe, never cease to function as a creative enema when the Muse fails to appear.

In many ways, they're even more effective than a good, stiff shot of whiskey.

The last time I made good use of them was about 4 years ago, when a fellow Catbox Cabaret member and I, at a loss for something to bring to an evening of improvisational mayhem we'd helped plan, came up with the last-minute concept of getting tequila-drunk, stripping to our underwear, and having me read from said diaries while my colleague accompanied me on saxophone.

They're still talking about that bit in some circles.

So last night, I pulled out the first of the two-volume set, chronicling the better part of my sophomore year (1985). Such pathos! The gut-wrenching torment of volleyball three times a week:

Dec. 9, 1985: ...the only thing I really hate is Gym class. We're doing volleyball of all fucking things. It just HAD to be volleyball. I hate the game with a passion. I always wind up on a team with all the asshole football player jocks who scream at me because the ball goes ten feet over my fucking head and I won't jump high enough to hit the shitpoke thing...

I remember all of this with a violent, shuddering terror. My high school operated on a six-day cycle: Monday was Day 1, Tuesday was Day 2, and so on until the following Monday, which was Day 6, Tuesday was Day 1....this was, and still is, incredibly confusing for someone like me, who has trouble remembering what day of the week it actually is without getting into all of this cyclical insanity. To sum up: I had Gym on days 1, 4 and 5. 4 and 5 were easy enough to remember; it was Day 1 that I could never keep track of. To this day, I still wake up in a blind animal panic, trying to remember if I have to go to Gym.

December 11, 1985: I tried to play volleyball again today. All the jocks screamed at me again. Fuck this shit. Fuck volleyball.

Even now, some 15 years later, I cannot play volleyball. I go to picnics and other such outings, and as soon as the volleyball net goes up, I visibly blanch and have to retreat somewhere in my head, circa '85, with a clove cigarette and a Joy Division record. My friends will beckon to me: come play with us! I know that I am in a good place, surrounded by loved ones with no football players in sight, a place where I will not be yelled at for failing to rotate with the others....and yet I still can't bring myself to participate. It's sick, I know, and clearly indicative of some unresolved issues.

But you know, hey, there's really not much else I'm particularly bitter about, so all things considered, I think I'll continue to cling to this one random aversion.

Um, yeah! Fuck volleyball, man...

lisamcc at 03:14:22

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