tavie.com

I haven't been very talk-y this semester. Particularly not in English class, which is historically a talk-y subject for me.
We've gotten two written assignments so far, one paper and one midterm, both months ago, and he only returned them to us this week. I got A- and A+, with comments about needing to flesh out paragraphs more, and a question at the end of one appraisal: "Since your viewpoints are so fresh, why not speak up more in class?"

It's like he suddenly realised I exist, because he called on me about a million times today. Usually he calls on the same few people (disproportionately gay boys, since the class is made up of mostly gay boys) to read or blither on about some fine point in some text. Today, I had to explain plot points, describe characters, and read a very wordy part aloud in a Joe Orton play. I did so in a bored, emotionless tone, as I am not accustomed to reading lines in front of people. I suppose I'll have to catch up on my English reading if this pattern is to continue. I did get a laugh; during one stage direction when the character I was reading is supposed to laugh, I paused, shrugged, and said dryly, "Ha ha ha." I think I have a career as an actress ahead of me.

Yesterday my mom and I were talking about Life, Careers and Wasted Potential and I asked her if I could get the job my dad has now. (I've taken the Civil Service exam and get sent offers for clerical positions, usually in Brooklyn mental facilities, for some reason, from time to time.) She looked surprised and said, "Of course."

This was a bit depressing. I know very well that my father has a very low-level, monotonous clerical position at the New York State department of labour, and that, unlike my mother, he never moved up in the ranks because he never felt the need to. (My mother is by far the breadwinner in the family.) But the idea that at this point in my life I could very well just take over for him, start now as a clerk and eventually work my way up to middle management-- fair pay, dull days, hoarding hours and money for vacations like my mother does... and this is how I see my life turning out. I'll fall back on civil service, waste a lot of potential. Anthropology will never take; I'll be frustrated by my lack of ability to make any sort of substantial contribution to the field, and the fact that teaching doesn't interest me (and, in fact, terrifies me).

Wasted Potential is a theme in my family. Who cares that my father taught himself to play the piano almost brilliantly by ear despite not reading a note of music, can draw and illustrate beautifully with no instruction, has calligraphed at a professional level for so long that he's forgotten how to write normally, can mimic accents and pick up bits of languages like some sort of pro? He's a low-level civil
servant at 63, and will retire as such.

I see a pattern, I really do. I'll be a civil servant, and I'll draw the signs for birthday and retirement parties in my office. "Oh, Octavia" (I'll have given up trying to make people know me as 'Tavie' for convenience's sake), they'll say, "I didn't know you could draw." Or sing or write or play several musical instruments terribly. "Oh, you know," I'll say, "it amuses from time to time."

Why are you in Tavie's head? 7:18 PM | shower me with attention