"Can we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark saying, "Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we'll make it right." The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. The weeping earth itself knows how desperate is the child's need for exactly that sanctuary. How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia.
Grownups can deal with scraped knees, dropped ice-cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrified revulsion. Yet we are small and as terrified as we are terrifying in our ferocious appetites."
- 'Geek Love,' Katherine Dunn
Strangely, my own thoughts have been around similar lines to these, the past few days. But in a slightly different register.
The Laura Secord where I work is right opposite an "Ardene" girl-bauble-type store. You know the type- fluffy sparkly slippers and fancy fake leather belts and lots of shiny earrings and tasteless jewellery of the sort 10-year olds crave. And naturally, being very close to the subway, we get a lot of the after-school crowds, the girls' school on Wellesley, the French Lycee, the little private schools on Prince Arthur. They crowd into our store, and into the "Ardene." And as I serve them icecream (frequently) or punch in their chocolate bars (sometimes), I listen to them talk and watch them interact.
And fuck, man, 13-year old girls are vicious sadists!
You'll see 3 or 4 girls getting icecream (usually at least one getting a huge double-waffle cone, and one getting the daily special, whatever the flavour is, which is 40 cents cheaper than a regular cone.) And they'll all be grouped around the cash register, waiting for their icecreams, and by watching for a few seconds, you can tell which girl is the Leader, and which girl is the one the rest make fun of when she's barely out of ear-shot (a group-mocking usually started by the Leader.) And the poor chump will make some "uncool" comment, and suddenly the air is full of "Oh My GOD did you HEAR what she just SAID like OMIGOD I don't think so! I can't believe you just said that!" It reminds me of what Pratchett said in "Small Gods"- along the lines of "those people around the stoning pit were so glad it wasn't them being stoned that they were hurling their stones just about as hard at they could." Or like that metaphor (possibly in "The Crucible" or "To Kill A Mockingbird," I can't remember) about chickens pecking at a spot of blood on one of their number until there's blood on other chickens, and they'll all peck each other to death. Animals and teenage girls can smell weakness, y'see? And fear, too. And they jump on it, because only guilty, uncool people are afraid, right? But on the outside, you can watch them, you can see how much they're all afraid, of being pointed out, singled out, snubbed or made fun of. They're all terrified of it, in case they suddenly lose all their friends and their prestige.
And you usually just want to make fun of the Head Bitch, take her down a peg, but you can't because you're at work and, unlike "Amelie," not everyone has a convenient prompter, hiding in cellars, who make sure the underdogs always have the last laugh. So you just walk away when you're done, shaking your head and whispering "Twat..." to yourself, and hoping the poor dumb sheep-girl in the group will realize her self-respect is more important than her pseudo-friends. Because no matter what kind of evil tortures you hear about in Iraq, no matter how much Bush bangs on his war-drum and shouts about Saddam debasing the human spirit.... there's nothing so cruel as 13-year old girls.
My first Random Act of Journaling
Readin'
Listenin' to
Thinkin' about
Most recently I was 
