Wow. Look at the fucking choppers on that kid. And what happened to my freckles? I forgot all about those.
I think it was in grade two that I decided that I wanted to be a writer. And what do you think I wrote about? Well, I’ll let Mrs. Ralfe, one of my all time favorite teachers, explain: “Ryan’s book about his robot was delightful.” It looks like I did something about robots during every term. My Nan actually still has a cardboard robot rabbit I made.
And dinosaurs. This was my dinosaur phase. Every kid goes through one, I was no different. Mrs. Ralfe says: “Ryan’s love of reading has continued to grow. I’m sure that he has read every dinosaur book we have.”
I’ve always been and still am a phase learner. I go through obsessive periods where I learn as much as I can about whatever subject. Back then, I’d eventually run out of books and have to move on to something else. (Wonder what would have happened if I had access to the internet then.) These days I just get sick of a subject and/or bump into something more interesting. I guess that makes me a dilettante but I don’t really care.
My speech remained an issue and, funny enough, it effected my spelling and written language. “Ryan misspells the sounds that he has trouble saying.” Well, that makes sense. Mrs. Ralfe made a lot of sense and, even better, she had great taste: “I sure like all the robots and things you create at the art center.” I’m not sure that she was so fond of my glue eating. But, when you have teeth like that, you need to put them to some use.
She took me to some sort of writing thing at some point, where I read a poem that I made up on the spot. Can’t remember much about it except that it was about rain – it was raining, big surprise — and she was impressed. For years, I had the certificate from that thing, which declared me to a be a future writer. It hung on my wall until highschool when something happened to it. I think I gave it to a girl. If things turn out well for me – and there’s a big bloody if — I’m hoping to buy it off ebay one day.
In grade two I also ended up in the hospital with a pretty bad concussion. I was pushed off a pile of ice while playing “King of the Castle” –a game that’s probably banned now — and cracked my head upon the concrete. I remember crawling into the the school and throwing up. They fed me ice-cream at the hospital. (They stopped when I started abusing the buzzer. Swear to God, I’ve always been like a monkey with a heroin producing lever.) I had a crush on the nurses as well as the girl in the same room. Good thing that never became a fetish. My life is complicated enough. I still like ice-cream. Ate some yesterday. Banana nut.
