11 years out: interview with my special secret agent girl

dear girl,

This interview is eleven years old; someone who was born when i wrote this would be able to read it. How interesting is that?
I just thought lately that life is a cycle of circles and boxes opening and closing within each other; while this is somewhat edited, and names have been changed to protect the innocence lost, I will take this down if you want to, but as we know, I do miss you very much.

You were always telling me that I thought too highly of most people, that I would always be disappointed. But when I see what you said even as a teenager, you were amazing and still are and always will be.

I think you are wrong sometimes though... sometimes it's worth it to care about people who don't deserve it. Sometimes things change, but you don't even realize it was worth it until years later. They might never realize it. Sometimes people done things for me in the past and I didn't realize what they were trying to say until now. Life is full of these disconnects.



Where do you see yourself right now?

I'm at a transitional point in my life. I just dropped out of everything: school, working, relationships etc. for a while and I'm trying to get back to a place that is comfortable for me on my terms. I just moved back home with my parents out of financial necessity. It isn't very aesthetically or emotionally pleasing but it's practical... An important personal relationship just ended for me and it was easy to think that I could surround myself in my job because my life "was over!" But I have a mess of growing up to do before I'll resign myself to that.

What part of the Midwest are you from?

I grew up and currently live in central Indiana. I don't know what grand and sweeping statements I could make about it. I'm too accustomed to its intrinsic rhythms, I don't think that there's anything special about regions these days because we all see the same McDonald's commercials and watch the same CNN newscasts.

What's the scene like there?

There are a lot of scenes. I don't really like to think about them. ___ is notoriously cruel and cliquish and very prone to chewing people up and spitting them out. It holds a special place on my shitlist. There's no giving/sharing going on in the scenes that I'm familiar with, the thing that would make a scene worthwhile. They exist here solely as a means to put your brain on autopilot and hang out with similar versions of yourself. It's good sometimes but after a bit you start to move on and growing up takes its toll. It's difficult for me to think objectively about scenes, since when I first started hanging around the ____ thing, I made 20 new best friends. But when you start to differ in opinion and you don't make the effort anymore, it's amazing that you can lose your friends just as quick as that you made them.
Scenes in general are always going to be disappointing cause that's just too many people, too many variables. There is no assurance that every person is going to behave nicely and be uniformly rad. I like people a lot but if you're in a scene it's usually for lameness and not dedication or whatever.

Do you have any sayings or truisms about the Midwest/your state? Are there certain mindsets? What are the good points about the Midwest? the bad points?

Life here is like whole milk. It's slow going down. As a child I was disappointed to live in such an uninteresting place in my tract housing development devoid of history. But there's culture in that white trash thing, too. Practicality born out of poverty type of thing.
Um, my stepfather is not a particularly stupid man, but he is suspicious of bigshiny places like New York and California. He considers the people from these places "flaky." I find myself easily sliding into this prejudice as well. I am glad that I grew up catching crawdads in creeks and playing in fields. It's very settling. I'm glad I live in a place with so many trees, even if Indiana is the fifth worst polluted state.
I have this really sheltered feeling from growing up in a land-locked state. I'm attracted to and frightened by oceans and large bodies of water, they're dangerous and I feel like I could slide off the ground into them and never return. I feel safe here.
But that's also the bad thing about the midwest, it's so regular and even the level-headed as to be boring at times, complacent.

What about the llamas?

The llamas live across the street from me. They are owned by an elderly couple that look exactly like jimmy and rosalyn carter. They keep them for pets and they all have little nylon collars with bells. Llamas don't spit as a rule, but there is one evil llama that is brown instead of white and has no ears. They were frostbitten off one year and he just has these holes in his head. Consequently he is angry and spits. It's a brownspit, in case you wondered sometimes when they fuss with each other they scream like humans in a great deal of pain. This is unsettling to hear in the middle of the night.

What do people who went to your high school do now? Do you relate to them?

They either went to college because they had to or they are in trades right now or they joined the carnival that comes through town each year around graduation time. I can't relat to any of them, I never could. I can talk to them and see their point of view and accept their contribution to the world just fine but I can't relate to them interpersonally on a deep level at all.

It is a very involved reason why, with lots of personal factors. Partially it's that loner thing, and part of it is that starving smart kid thing. There wasn't anyone at my school interested in the same things that I as at the same times. also, my verbal skills only developed recently, which is too late to have been making friends with other ___ kids.

The ones that made it to college are the same as ever, they'll all go straight from mom and dad's to college to jobs without ever doing any real life growing up in the meanwhile. And they'll come back to nest in ___ and raise other small minds and tell them all about the wide world without ever having lived in it. This upsets me.

WWF. Expand this topic.

What about GLOW?
I used to rock out to that tape that all the wrestlers made of them singing inane songs about kicking the other guy's ass... what is with all that intricate feudalism within WWF? I remember when WWF and Hulk Hogan in particular was the shit. There was a cartoon that explained all the characters and their complexities in depth.
I wonder what the kids of that snap into a slim jim guy think of him? I wonder if they have little mullets and body slam each other when daddy comes on TV? I bet he has a tortured daughter that is away at college on the slim jim money and she cringes for fear that someone finds out who her father is. I bet she is glad that the world only knows him by his wrestling ring name, whatever that is.

Do you get sick of people being biased against you because of the state you're from? Is it a big deal? Do you find yourself doing the same thing?

I get sick of people making redneck/white trash generalizations. I get tired of people not appreciating subtlety. Even people from this state do it. I had a friend that is on some personal mission to denounce white trash as it crosses her path. It upsets me that others can't appreciate a different way of life. some people don't have choices, and these are the people that serve your fast food piping hot and pick up your garbage and fix your muffler and grow your food and drive the semis to get it to you. respect them or your fucked. it's easy to do the same thing.

I was sitting in a taco bell watching the carnival that comes through each June set up in the parking lot, and I mentioned that the carnies didn't look very busy. There happened to be a couple of 'carnies' sitting a few tables away and they got up and walked out. I felt terrible. Who am I to call them names when they work harder than I'll ever have to. You just have to slow down and remember things and where everyone fits in. I looked at my bean burrito and felt humbled and like such a heel.

If you have left (or will leave) do you think you'll ever return?

I don't think I could ever really leave. I'm an Indianan by nature. When I travel I just feel out of place, other places are tempting to think about, but I couldn't adjust.

Where do all the kids go to do the dirty, illegal things? what are some famous incidents?

Illegal things? I was pretty removed from socialization in high school. I know there's a few places way out that are supposedly place of satanic worship, remnants from that eighties fascination with all things heavy metal. People load up all tanked up on pot and everclear and drive out to them and climb barbed wire fences copping a feel on their dates and get the asses of their jeans peppered with rock salt from angry residents' shotguns.

What are the coolest places to visit?

In ___ the land behind the llama farm and out on goat hill observatory even though that's not really in ___. In Indianapaolis--there are tons of neat places. Memory is failing me though. The canal and all the new work they've done to it. Go there at night.

Avoid Broad Ripple, the bridge kids will get you every time. Bloomington is gorgeous. There are lots of nice parks around the state, especially shades state park. just go driving far out int he country, you will find neat lakes and abandoned family cemeteries to frolic in.

Who are some people that you admire that come from the Midwest?

Um.
I would like to say that I admire my great grandparents. My great-grandpa hopped freights to look for migrant seasonal work in orchards and on farms. he found a tomato farm in Indiana that invited his wife and kids to come and live in the loft of the barn and work for them, so the family loaded up and moved here from the south in their car and lived in the barn. One of my great uncles had a dream that he could fly and jumped out of the loft in his sleep. He broke his shoulder on the concrete floor of the barn and they couldn't afford a doctor.

Once they were settled here they rented a chicken coop. One night, a hobo came along and thought he would steal a chicken for his dinner but instead he got bapped on the head by great grandma's broom. She raised and sold chickens for extra money in town while great grandpa worked at the Chrysler foundry. he was a conscientous objector during WW2 and was forced into public works labor.
They were just so kind and neat.

Midwestern men (edited by me)

There is nothing special about Midwestern men. They tend to be more sexist and ignorant, as midwestern people are in general, since Indianapolis is not the cultural magnet that say new york is. They tend to know how to fix things, they are very into their roles as males a lot of times. That is neither good nor bad, depending. It's hard to find good relationships; of people I know tend to last longer out of desperation.

(cut out by me)

...They are the abusive first boyfriends and the distant fathers... but if you live here they can also be the last boyfriends. Those are the rare ones around here. The only remnants they carry of their extensive male training is the ability to fix cars and other household items and possibly they watch sports. This type of boy is familiar and sweet, almost your dad but more PC.

What's with those monster big wheels trucks?

It's just testosterone. They're incredibly unsafe to operate. When you get a flat on one of those, you're truly fucked. It's impraticality, it's like Japanese couture.