“Barry,” my cousin Mike said, “I think it’s time.” It was clear that my brother didn’t feel the same way, but he only shrugged, which Mike took as agreement. “Dave,” he said, giving the words as much gravity as he could muster, “Go get the dictionary.” I was nine years old, and a tag-along. I’d walked in on my brother telling a story about how—during school that morning—a girl he knew got her period in the middle of French class. And I laughed like the dickens. And then they called me on it. After I’d lugged the dictionary down from the spare room, Mike told me to look up the word period and read out the definition. “The end of a cycle, a series of events, or a single action?” “Keep going,” he said. “The full pause with which a sentence closes?” “Not that.” “An interval of geologic—“ “Gimme that!” He yanked the book towards him, read down the page, and pointed me towards the definition he’d found. Menstruation: the monthly discharge of blood from the uterus of nonpregnant women from pu...
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Oh no wait, even better.
Scoring the lead role of Santa Claus in the fifth grade Christmas pageant.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with that one.
(I have a tendency to rely on humour to obscure the fact that I'm actually a big softy. Don't judge me)
Welcome to my world.
It was the first time in my life that I realized someone with an awesome personality and other talents could win at the popularity game when up against someone who had all the physical blessings.
In retrospect, it seems kind of trivial, but it meant the world to me back then.
Okay, that one, but also when I got to armour (basically, equipment maintenance and repair) at a major university fencing event. There weren't many women who did that, and my coach put me there when he found out I had a knack for repairing body wires and ground cords.
Either that, or dancing on the risers at Au Bar.