Broken Sunday, Feb 21 2010 

personal rmason 9:47 am

My sister broke her arm when we were both in elementary school. She fell off the swings playing a game she and her friends had devised. This was during recess. I didn’t see it happen, or know what was going on, but I remember it.

It’s mostly just this weird image I have of standing in line after the bell rang, waiting to go inside. I remember seeing the playground teacher leading her inside, and my sister crying, and being worried and confused. Was she in trouble? Had she done something wrong? I remember it felt weirdly alone. I knew something bad was happening but I had no idea what.

That’s all I really remember. I don’t remember how I found out about her broken arm. Some more weird images of the school’s office are floating around through my head but I don’t know if it’s real or imagined. But that moment really stuck with me. Maybe it’s because I always figured that if anything were to happen to one of us it would happen to me. That’s how it usually worked out. We were playing on some TV trays and I was the one who ended up with the two-inch gash by my eye. Later on, when we were teens, when she was teaching me to skateboard I was the one who fell off and fucked up his teeth and tore open his lip.

I still have the scars from both of those. She told me she felt bad about it once. I’m just happy for the stories.

My sister got a plaster cast and had lots of friends sign it. A few years later, when I was in fifth grade, some kid broke my arm and I didn’t go to the doctor for days, because I refused to believe that it wasn’t going to be okay. He put my arm in a sling and made bad jokes, and I felt like everyone was staring at me all the time.

 

Bookstores Saturday, Feb 20 2010 

personal rmason 5:14 am

When I was a kid my father worked at the community college, and we’d spend a lot of time around his work after school. Often we’d go to the bookstore and someone would buy us some snacks. For some reason I associate it particularly with gummi worms; for the longest time this was my only association with the place. I didn’t really notice or care that it sold books, so long as there was candy in it for me.

I remember an occasion where someone asked if I wanted to go to the Snackbar. This is apparently what the cafeteria used to be called. Naturally I said yes, because I assumed they meant the bookstore, where we got our snacks, and I could be relied upon to want candy. And we went to this place which was foreign to me and serving food that wasn’t candy at all, and I was very upset. This wasn’t the Snackbar, this was some other place, some place serving food I wanted none of. It was shattering. I felt cheated. I felt like the world wasn’t working the way it’s supposed to.

I’m older now. I know the context of things, and I understand confusion, as much as any of us can. I still care a great deal about words and what they mean, though, and I still find it shattering when life doesn’t live up to my expectations. I have them so rarely, that when it doesn’t happen I don’t know what to do. I was expecting something. I had every reason to believe it would happen. When it doesn’t, I feel just like I did back then. Like there’s something that just fundamentally broke, and I’m left holding the pieces.

And I’d been thinking of that story lately, because sometimes an old story you’d forgotten for years is the best way to frame the world.

 

Public Apology: Those Girls Who Hated Me Thursday, Feb 4 2010 

Uncategorized rmason 5:16 pm

Dear girls who hated me when I first started college,

This was about 2005-2006, I guess. You may remember! I was always hanging out on the couches, along with some of my friends. I think there were two or three of you. I only remember one of your names, and that one of you was blonde. Apparently one time you complained about me to the guy who works in the cafeteria, who knew me. “Do you know Robert Mason?” you asked. And when he said he did, you just said how much you hated me.

I have no idea what I had done to earn your ire. I suppose it was probably just a case of being completely different people who happened to share proximity all the time. Apparently your hate for me was pretty intense. I’m sorry if I caused you to lose sleep or something. I mean, I’m sure you aren’t terrible people. Maybe you are very nice, and I just rubbed you the wrong way? So, I’m sorry. I hope that you don’t think back of how much you hated me from time to time, unless it’s just to laugh about the follies of youth. We should all laugh about the follies of youth.

Yours,

Rob Mason