The Enduring Haunting of a Failed Driver’s Test(s)
The greatest shame of my young life was the first time I failed my driver’s test.
I had never failed a test in my life, despite the fact that my Pre-Calculus teacher frequently left for 60 minutes of our 80 minute period and never really closed the loop on what radians are. How could I possibly start failing now?
The Secret Histories of Everywhere
My mother always used to tell me that I had an “over-active” imagination, with an emphasis on the over. In hindsight, I don’t think she meant that as a good thing. She used to say that when I was being annoying. Like the time I insisted on bringing a backpack to the supermarket with a wolverine mask from a 1991 costume set that I stole from my older brother and a bathrobe inside.
Exercise
Exercise: v. middling, meddling, 500 years ago—To put into action. Circa 1340: to raise from the dead. Circa 1729: to exercise one’s tongue. To practice one’s genius. To exercise one’s pipes. To bring to bear. Circa 1738, of Psalms and Hymns. A prompt of no serious exchange—except one’s rights. Take advantage of property laws. Speak out. Hear me out: i.e. to exercise power.
I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard
My father never drank except at Christmastime, I’ve
never seen a brown bottle drain until I was seven, stayed
at my grandmother’s house and knew the skank smell of alcohol, in
winter where cigarette smoke looks ghostly, the
ash tray a black patch of night, he sat on the steps in front
