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chicatingFrom BTVS
The power isn’t the only thing that lets Tara know she’s different, though she is very careful to float flowers and herbs under her mother’s protective and affectionate eye. Later on, in the sixth grade, she wonders if it’s the same power or a different one that makes her flutter with something besides envy when pretty, blonde, Charlotte Crowe has a cousin that sent her an expensive bathing suit from Florida. Char was always something to look at, but now Tara feels something drop out of the pit of her stomach that she doesn’t think the other girls notice. She is too shy to ask, though, even though they used to be close in the early grades, being such a small class. Other students don’t notice Tara in school, but her teachers have sometimes: The careful yet beautiful drawings in her notebooks, too meticulous to be called doodles, too lightly regarded by their artist to appear in the school magazine or Culture Night.
Tara’s father thinks any talk of her being gifted and talented is demonic, too, and the polite wall of resistance Tara herself puts up when asked to do a solo sometimes causes Mrs. Magnuson,choir instructor to three schools in their district, to lose more sleep than all the miles she puts on her Ford Escort. “You have a gift,” the teacher prods, trying to be gentle, but she had a lot of voice lessons and is twice Tara’s age and has still never managed the clear, pure sound that comes from Tara McClay’s mouth. “a God-given gift. It would be a sin not to use it.”
“That’s not what my father says,”Tara shrinks into herself again.
“Fathers don’t know everything,” Mrs. Magnuson said, and Tara looked delighted. The choir instructor knew better than to push, though. Sometimes parents moved rather than answer questions about their kids, even ones about their talents. Over the years, she wondered if she’d done the right thing.
The power isn’t the only thing that lets Tara know she’s different, though she is very careful to float flowers and herbs under her mother’s protective and affectionate eye. Later on, in the sixth grade, she wonders if it’s the same power or a different one that makes her flutter with something besides envy when pretty, blonde, Charlotte Crowe has a cousin that sent her an expensive bathing suit from Florida. Char was always something to look at, but now Tara feels something drop out of the pit of her stomach that she doesn’t think the other girls notice. She is too shy to ask, though, even though they used to be close in the early grades, being such a small class. Other students don’t notice Tara in school, but her teachers have sometimes: The careful yet beautiful drawings in her notebooks, too meticulous to be called doodles, too lightly regarded by their artist to appear in the school magazine or Culture Night.
Tara’s father thinks any talk of her being gifted and talented is demonic, too, and the polite wall of resistance Tara herself puts up when asked to do a solo sometimes causes Mrs. Magnuson,choir instructor to three schools in their district, to lose more sleep than all the miles she puts on her Ford Escort. “You have a gift,” the teacher prods, trying to be gentle, but she had a lot of voice lessons and is twice Tara’s age and has still never managed the clear, pure sound that comes from Tara McClay’s mouth. “a God-given gift. It would be a sin not to use it.”
“That’s not what my father says,”Tara shrinks into herself again.
“Fathers don’t know everything,” Mrs. Magnuson said, and Tara looked delighted. The choir instructor knew better than to push, though. Sometimes parents moved rather than answer questions about their kids, even ones about their talents. Over the years, she wondered if she’d done the right thing.
Re: Oh my goodness
Date: 2023-06-16 12:23 am (UTC)Although I'm not sure I ever thought of being a guy more than thinking it's fun to be a ballsy male *character*...people have told me in groups that I'm "good at writing men," but I've stopped being complimentef by it cause sometimes it's a code for "God, you're vulgar..."(Which they say as if it's a bad thing.)
I think, in my own case, I admire the social freedom men still have...so maybe I'd like to be like that, without being one. There might be a male *side* in here, but he doesn't really want to drive.
maybe being ignored by boys when I was younger(except my uncle and having a brother) even though it hurt my feelings, helped me to develop.
Re: Oh my goodness
Date: 2023-06-16 12:37 am (UTC)Yeah, you write a very plausible McNulty. In fact, since I read your Jimmy before I ever saw him on screen, I think yours is my default for him. And I don't think I've ever seen you use vulgarity where it was uncalled for -- I can't really throw stones there, since I've been too sweary for the adults around me since I was about nine.
I don't think my feminine side as such really wants to drive; it's more a case of my masculine side would like to feel safe being a lot, lot softer by default. But I've seen what happens to men perceived as soft in tech settings, and ... yeah, I don't think I can put myself through that.
Re: Oh my goodness
Date: 2023-06-16 01:07 am (UTC)Yeah, sorry, hon...wasn't sure how to write about wanting to be a guy, as not-a-guy, in more than a transitory way. More than wondering what it'd be like to have my friend's parents, or...
Re: Oh my goodness
Date: 2023-06-16 01:36 am (UTC)I like it, even if sometimes it has made me concerned for you.
Re: Oh my goodness
Date: 2023-06-25 12:54 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85FzjM-GkCk
I didn't used to swear...not sure why it mattered...some teachers calling it "poverty of expression' etc, perhaps. No longer believe this across the board...Deadwood, for instance, is very earthy and all that, at times, hard to watch, but parts of it are fucking beautiful, too. (My mother always swore, some but not like on the Wire, though.
Comparatively, I came to it late, but I've made up for lost time, maybe like a motherfucker. Ha ha.
One of my first words was 'Asshole!" though. Maybe it was more like a long...latency period.