From 1985 until 1994, I spent most of my time at a small Catholic School on Whalley Avenue. It was all I really knew of the world, aside from books and television, music and movies. My house was only 3 blocks from the school, on Elm Street.
I recall passing through downtown on our way to Mystic, CT, where my grandparents lived, and wondering aloud, "Why is there a castle downtown?" and they told me it was a school, but I'm not sure that I believed them fully at the time.
My mother finished high school but never attended college. She found work as a typist, and would obtain manuscripts and put together final proofs for academic journals. In spite of the importance of her stage in the work, being that she was the last step in the process before things went to print, she was never paid very well but she still liked doing it. In our first apartment, I recall her office in the attic, full of brown manilla folders on shelves surrounding an old IBM typewriter. There was a pinball game up there, with the Christmas ornaments and boxes of clothes out of season. I wasn't allowed to play it when she was working because it was distracting to her. I remember the one day that Hurricane Gloria came to town, that we sat around playing cards by candle-light. I was six. i recall watching a person ride his bicycle down Norton Street in the howling wind and pouring rain. I was amazed, because I knew how unlikely it would be for me to have permission to ride my bicycle at that exact moment.
My father received a degree from SCSU for Social Work. His first job was with the State of Connecticut, followed by a company called CCCI. I can't remember what that stands for. He primarily worked with the elderly, assessing their needs and getting them home care, rather than nursing homes. During this time, he was a fairly attentive dad, got me lots of books and legos, signed me up for tee-ball, and in the process did a fairly decent job of keeping me mentally stimulated. This only lasted for so long, though, and I can hardly remember his demeanor because it changed so quickly. In 1992, he was hospitalized for a nonmalignant cyst in his spinal column which nearly left him paralyzed. The steroids they gave him caused him to develop bipolar disorder, which still remains quite prevalent to this day as a part of his personality. He never fully psychologically recovered, I don't think.
That affected my education in such a way, because he was from that point entirely discouraging towards any type of progress that I made, academically. When it came time to apply to colleges, I tried to encourage him to help me with my applications. One application was for Yale, and I wanted to be in my hometown because I loved it so much here. However, my dad threw all of the applications away to the schools that he considered too expensive to afford, disregarding any possibility that I would be eligible for financial aid. he monopolized my choices and limited them strictly to schools that he thought were affordable.
I settled on SUNY Purchase, a small liberal arts college in Westchester County, NY. My father was open to the idea of it, and I felt like they had a decent enough program that I could find my way through it and be OK. In my first year there, I had a quiet roommate who was studious and got to bed on time, kept the room neat and quiet and we were both able to concentrate and study. I made the Dean's List those two semesters, which was great. But I didn't make many friends, and everyone seemed really pre-occupied with their conservatories. I wanted to be in an art conservatory there, but you were only allowed into one at a time, and unless you were in the conservatories, you weren't allowed really to take the upper level courses. Since it was also an arts school, my interest was to be in both the music and the film conservatories, but they wouldn't allow it. So, it was then that I decided I would just drop out completely and teach myself music and video. It would be much less expensive, I'd be closer to home, where all my friends were, and I'd have the freedom of making my own curriculum.
This began my period of self education, which lasted the next seven years of my life.
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