The Story of My Life
As you may notice, this page is a little... dissimilar from the original life story. Well, I've become a bit more creative. As a matter of fact, so creative, that I scrapped everything and started anew. Therefore, this thing should be completely different from anything you may have previously printed and sold as your own material. If you did that, I hate you. It took me a gruelling five minutes to create that document, and I demand my rights to it! Oh well. As if I can do anything about it. So what I'm gonna do is piss and moan like an impotent jerk and then turn around and take it up the tailpipe (for those of you who have no idea that that quote comes from the film "Liar Liar" starring Jim Carrey, may you be smitten for your sheer and utter stupidity). Either way, I'm helpless. So if you made money off of my writing, congratulations. But don't come crawling to me when you find a horse's head in your bed (now if you don't know where THAT came from...). So, without further ado, I bring you the revised version of My Life Story.
*****
It was a cold day. As a matter of fact, it was freezing. The date was December 5, 1984. I'm sure that somewhere in the world, something important was going on. But for our immediate purposes, we'll stick to me. For on that day, in the deep recesses of the Soviet Union's capital city of Moscow, a tomato-like object was held upside down by a probably drunken physician, as is the nature of most Russian people (to be drunk, not upside-down), and spanked for the first, but far from last, time in its life. It let out a wail, and I, Perly White, was officially alive. It was a difficult life for me in my early years. Ah, what the hell am I talking about? It was easy as all else. I mean, I was young, innocent (or so they thought), and hadn't a care in the world. So I had a great life. Seven years went by, and things started to become a bit shaky in the Russian political system. Namely, the government was completely overturned, and democracy reigned. And the Commies did not like that at all.
Life went on after that, but not with too much enjoyment. My parents were scared stiff, particularly because they had just lived through an assault on the government of a nation whose capital they inhabited. A fascist overturn, as one might call it. Anyway, they decided that it was high time to kick it into gear and get the hell out of there. Russia was no longer a very... comfy and cozy place. On March 16, 1992 we left our dear apartment, never to return again to its all-too-beloved walls. We got to the airport, and after I slept on the baggage check conveyor for 20 minutes and blew a quarter on a slot machine, we boarded a plane. Several hours and about a dozen cans of Donald Duck orange juice later, we arrived on the shores of America, where we now reside.
Life in the US was relatively easy, at least for me, from the offstart. There was, of course the whole English language issue, with which I had no grips whatsoever. I knew two words: hello and OK, and one of them isn't even a word (it's up to you to decide which one)! So I was kinda screwed on that front right off. But I managed. I fell in love with the Road Runner cartoons, which I would watch incessantly. And for the first time, I discovered the true wonders of owning a computer. From that point on, all I ever wanted to do anywhere was sit down at a computer and play games. The fact that it wasn't necessarily possible didn't bother me too much; a kid with no comprehension of the English language doesn't comprehend much else, either. Nonetheless, soon we moved into our first private residence: a pretty good apartment in the happy town of North Brunswick, NJ.
But time went by, as it has a cruel tendency to do, and North Brunswick was no longer such a happy town. I had to get out of there. Actually, my parents had to get out of there. I just willingly tagged along. Not that I really had a choice. But I like to think I did. Regardless, on September 30, 1995, my family and I once again migrated, but this time a much shorter distance. And this time I did not overdo the orange juice thing. But this time we had our own house. And that was nice. I enjoyed it very much. Of course, school got in the way of enjoyment for a period, even though the days of yore are nothing compared to high school. My early years were a breeze compared to now. And so time went by, and I became old. Old, old, old.
Summers here were nothing but fun. My first summer was the summer of 1996, which featured the Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA. I was inspired to do many things by those games, including an Olympics of my own. That, I must say, was a massive failure, even though in the short run it was a hell of a lot of fun. Some neighborhood friends and I decided it was an activity we could engage ourselves with, and so we did. It actually lasted into the summer of 1997, where it all abruptly ended shortly after the third semi-annual Olympics began. "Financial problems" I would call it. Actually, a grave mathematical error by one of my friends that caused all the "athletes" to become more than slightly peeved with me. In fact, they were pissed. So that ended. And that was that.
The 1996 Games inspired me to do more than start my own Olympics. I finally submitted to the activity that I had earlier deemed most prissy: gymnastics. I took that up, and haven't regretted it the least bit. It certainly helped, especially on the friendship front. I learned how not to piss people off. But that was later. MUCH later. Summer 1997 I went to International Gymnastics Camp, which I enjoyed very much. I learned SOMETHING, I think, but I'm not sure what. That same summer (or was it the summer before? Yes it was. Let me rephrase), or the summer before... yeah, the summer before... I went to chess camp. I think I got a lot more out of that, even though my career there was ended abruptly in 1999 when some unkind words from my hand to paper combined with the PMS of the director's wife caused me to be kicked out. That didn't matter too much; at least, not in the long run. It was a painful end, but it wasn't a critical point in my life.
Summer of 2000 I spent in Wisconsin at a camp where I learned a language. That was an experience to remember. Great place; wish I could go back. But alas, no such luck. Anyway, that ended, and I returned home to the mundane hell of school, which would start again come September. I went through that year quite typically, except for the fact that I actually did better. And that is how I wound up at the beginning of the 2001 Summer Season.
That particular season started out with quite a breakthrough. A rather hypothetical situation that had arisen approximately a month and a half ago, on May 16, and that had been bred on April 27, suddenly blossomed. The 18th of June was a good day for me; a day off from school for lack of final exams and the day that this particular hypothetical situation spent her first three hours at my house. The next day I returned for my last round of exams and finally wound up at home, doing my annual ritual paper-burning as a sort of severance from the bonds of that hated entity otherwise known as school. After a slight bout with depression and jealousy, I went to sleep at peace and the next morning went with the hypothetical situation to Six Flags Great Adventure theme park.
I hadn't been to Six Flags Great Adventure theme park under normal circumstances in over a year, so I was rather excited. The excitement was added to by the person with whom I was spending the day: Hali, the so-called "Hypothetical Situation." So the day started off great. Then it continued being great until it ended, at which point it was still great. And at 11:30 that night, on June 20, that hypothetical situation lost its hypothetical status and became a reality: Hali was officially, after a prolonged period of me working up the "balls" for it, my girlfriend. I was excited. Beyond excited. I was ecstatic. Of course, everything has a catch, and the catch to this particular victory of mine was that it happened behind the back of a friend of mine who was also interested in Hali. It was never my intent to go behind his back, but that seems to be the way things turned out. I'm sorry, Barak. I really am.
Anyway, Hali and I were instantly faced with quite a quandry: what to tell Barak, and how, and when, and every other question imaginable regarding telling him what had happened. So we finally reached a stroke of genius: why not write him a letter while he's at camp? That way, we won't have to deal with the repercussions immediately, he would be among other people, and time would pass before we had to confront him, allowing his temper to cool and his plots of vengeance against me to evaporate. Again, Murphy's Law took hold, and the letter that we wrote happened to be mailed on a very "convenient" date: July 3, one day after I left Hali for 12 days to go to Europe with my family. Mail in this country generally travels three days, and that rule held true, causing the letter to be placed in Barak's hands on July 6, which also happened to be his birthday. One can imagine the response to such a delightful birthday present. So to put it mildly, he was angry.
I returned from Europe 12 days later, as planned, and continued on with the summer. July 19, Hali's birthday, rolled around, and I again expressed my notoriety for let-downs: though her actual birthday present included two dozen red roses, that bouquet was accompanied by yet another departure of mine, this time to the Kutz Camp in Warwick, NY for a period of 3.5 weeks. Hali wasn't too pleased, and neither was I. Her pleasure only decreased when she found out about a number of things that went on at Kutz which are far too... well... much to mention here. One positive consequence of these things was that Hali ended up coming to visit me twice, though her motive of "checking up on me" was not the most desirable one.
I made some friends at camp, at least one of whom I continue to communicate with: Melissa Polk, affectionately called Missy. I also made a few enemies, but what else is new? There are very few Jews in the Reform movement that will tolerate Conservative political thinking. Then I came home, and put camp behind me in favor of more time with my Hali, to whom I grew closer by the day. Sadly, the summer season soon wore down, as they always do, and I was hurled semi-violently into my Junior year at high school. I expected it to be somewhat hellish, considering that such is the generally held opinion among most students. In all actuality it isn't half as bad as I had thought it might be, despite the increased level of things that one has to care about. Thank G-d for AP classes and lack of homework therein.
Early in the year I was switched to AP French because my teacher thought that French IV Honors was not challenging enough for me. That switch made me very happy, because besides the prestige of the AP label, my schedule was revamped so that I once again have a three-day weekend during exams. History for once started treating me well and I broke my three-year streak of straight B's no matter what. I even managed to get my first-ever A on the midterm, which surprised me tremendously. Meanwhile I continued my delightful and delighted life with Hali, growing ever closer to this day.
A bunch of unimportant/unmentionable stuff transpired between September and now (April). September 11, of course, was a blow, but I've made a concerted effort to put that in the back of my mind. Unimportant/unmentionable is on some level synonymous with forgotten, of course, so if anything pops into my mind and I feel like including it in my Life Story, I will add it as the opportunity and/or desire arises.
That about sums up the story of my life up until now; I intend wholeheartedly to update it as anything newsworthy comes up, but meanwhile I'll focus on other areas of the page that might actually make the process of visiting it semi-appealing.
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