My aspirations, my first rebellion, and the sound track from a dull childhood.

Either my memory is terrible, or my childhood was fairly empty. I'm leaning towards the latter. In my brain, I have 15-20 vivid, random memories, and the rest are fragmented pictures or emptiness. I guess I would still technically be in my "childhood", but I don't really want to dwell on that. The strange thing is that each of these memories has a certain song that's super-glued to it. Maybe I heard it on the radio while the event happened, but whatever the reason, they go hand and hand. I didn't choose the songs, this is just how my brain works.

The first conversation I remember is one with my mom. She asked me playfully what I wanted to be when I grew up. Probably to her disappointment, I answered, "A clown!" She said "A clown? They don't make much money. How about a doctor?" A doctor? How boring, I thought. I pondered the idea for a bit, and when she asked me again, I replied "I want to be a clown doctor!" Was this a clown dressed up as a doctor, a doctor who worked as a clown part time, or literally a doctor with a specialty for treating clowns? I'm not sure why, but the memory coincides with "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf

A memory that keeps coming back to me is of a specific day in first grade. I barely had any friends at this time, and my best one didn't go to school with me. I remember having the worst day possible in Mrs. Blair's class (At the time she was Miss Love-no. I don't remember the spelling, just the pronunciation. I hated her so much at the time). It was recess, and there was no way I was going outside to face those damn kids, so I went to the library and just started reading. I was really into Shel Silverstein. I think I was reading "Falling Up". It felt like I stayed for hours. I got in one of those book trances, where time slows down and you don't even seem to be reading the words, instead they're jumping out into this place in your sub conscience specifically meant for reading. That place that realizes that the words beaming up into your head are more important than any ritualistic, bull shit mechanical task you're going to be forced to do during the day. I think this is the first time I felt a genuine disregard for authority. It was the first time in a long while that I was happy. That's right, I was a depressed first grader. How is that even possible? Anyways, the next thing I remember is Miss Love-no's screeching twenty-something year old voice in my ear. Apparently I needed permission to go to the library, and I had stayed for there 30 minutes after recess had ended. The song that goes with it? "With a Little Help from My Friends" by Joe Cocker. How ironic.

Later that day, my friend at home, Aaron, introduced me to the concept of 'bad words'. I knew they existed, but never dared say one. He, being a big fourth grader, suggested that we do something called the 'bad word of the day', where we were allowed to whisper a sentence with a bad word in it, as long as it was just once a day and we kept it a secret. Aaron started: "Shit!" he said with a little too much excitement. He let it linger for a second. It was like he had been thinking for days about how he would contort his lips to get the full effect of the word when he was finally able to whisper it.

I giggled for a few moments, then decided I'd give it a shot. "Fuck Miss Love-no!".  I've never seen Aaron's eyes open as wide as they did after I said it.