It was a regular routine for me most Friday nights.
Usually I got done with watching “T.G.I.F.” on ABC, absorbing the family sitcoms proffered by the network in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Around 10pm or so, as the theme music for “20/20” was firing up, I would go select a book off of one of the bookshelves. It was the same shelf each time; I am just struggling to remember if the bookshelf was in the living room or my bedroom. I would grab a book. There wasn’t usually any rhyme or reason to the choice I was making.
I’d go back to the kitchen with my selection for the evening. I’d fire up the stove and put on some water to boil. Basic Lipton black tea-nothing fancy, nothing herbal. A little sugar and some milk made for a nice soothing beverage for late-night reading.
I’d settle into a chair, or rather, settle in as much as you can settle into the chair that is part of a dining room table set. I’d crack open the book and start to read.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the book was almost always a volume of the early 1980s World Book Encyclopedia? My nerdiness knew no boundaries even back then.
I did it to myself. My social awkwardness around members of the opposite gender started at that time. Yeah, I attended the monthly mixer that my all-male high school sponsored, standing around against the wall of the auditorium listening to bands or down in the cafeteria, listening to a DJ spin the best in early 90’s slow jams and dance songs. Hell, I even wrote a song about it:
MILQUETOAST
He spies her from the corner
The corner of the room he’s sitting in
He wants to go talk to her
But he doesn’t know where to begin
This isn’t something new
This happens every day
He just wishes he could make
This feeling go away
Look at the milquetoast
The object of ridicule
The wimp, the coward
The fool, the one without a clue
Look at the milquetoast
The downtrodden one
It’s very hard for him
To have any fun
Look at the milquetoast
He’s paralyzed by fear
He’s afraid to move from his spot
He’s worried that if he goes over
He’s going to get shot
Down
So he sits on his side of the room
Looking down, feeling blue
Trying hard to avoid the gloom
From not doing what he wants to do
Look at the milquetoast
The object of ridicule
The wimp, the coward
The fool, the one without a clue
Look at the milquetoast
The downtrodden one
It’s very hard for him
To have any fun
Look at the milquetoast
Look at the milquetoast
The object of ridicule
The wimp, the coward
The fool, the one without a clue
Look at the milquetoast
The downtrodden one
It’s very hard for him
To have any fun
Look at the milquetoast
Look at the milquetoast
The object of ridicule
The wimp, the coward
The fool, the one without a clue
Look at the milquetoast
The downtrodden one
It’s very hard for him
To have any fun
Look at the milquetoast
And there was the occasional group outing with folks from either musicals I was in or people I knew. Oh, and I cannot forget the long-distance calls to my friend across the river in Teaneck, New Jersey, although those didn’t really take place on Friday nights. That was more of a Monday-Thursday running up of the phone bill.
Although I guess there was a positive outcome to those many Friday nights at home: it did lead me, in a way, to a successful stint on Jeopardy! several years ago.
So I had that going for me. Which was nice.
For the most part, though, my Fridays were spent at home alone.
The funny thing is, I still manage to get lost in encyclopedias. Granted it’s Wikipedia, which means you have to take some of the articles with a grain of salt. However, I cannot deny that I can literally go to look up one thing on Wikipedia and then enter a spiral of clicks and following links that leads me 15 articles deep and struggling to remember why I even went to the site in the first place. I actually find those times, lost in thought and in reading random factoids exhilarating.
Even though today, I do it without tea.
Originally published at http://www.dfsingleton.me on October 11, 2013.
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