The development of The Prodigal Son as a conversationalist

From zero years to one year old, most of my communication consisted of the standard gurgles. Sometime after that, I said the word "ball." It's just been uphill from there.

My very first communication was about superheroes. This is because my father taught me the secret identities of the superheroes. He used to parade me around like a prize poodle who knew one trick, supplying me with the names of costumed vigilantes.

"The Hulk!"

"Bwuce Banna!"

"Spiderman!"

"Peta Pahka!"

"Batman!"

"Bwuce Wayne!"

I also knew many of the theme songs from the TV shows. I used to go around singing them. Adults seemed to like this. It also, along with, later on, my spelling abilities, seemed to garner grudging respect from my peers. I learned that if you knew something that not everybody did, it made you cool. Of course, it was a lot less cool when I turned eleven or so, and still tried to impress people with my knowledge of comics, which exploded into obsession passed its beginnings as a kind of parlor trick for my dad.

Then, I got into movies. Suddenly, everything related to films. I would go out of my way to direct conversations to the topic of cinema, constructing extended metaphors that made no sense whatsoever. Also, in my beginnings as a cinephile, I got very self-righteous, yelling at girls who thought Johnny Depp was "like, so hot in Secret Window," telling them to watch Edward Scissorhands.

I was cool and smart.

My teachers said I had a lot of potential, and they told my mother I was very handsome, which made up for the hatred from most of my peers.

Then, I went to a gifted program camp. It wasn't great, but I made a very good friend. The next summer, we did the program again, but at a different college campus. We had both discovered masturbation, and we talked about it constantly, especially before we went to bed. It would be interspersed with references to fairly standard classic movies.

When I went back home, this time to a new town, I had a new topic of conversation.

I was cool and smart.

Somewhere in the middle of eighth grade, I realized that I actually enjoyed talking to people, even if most of them did not like talking to me. How would I be able to have conversations? I thought I found an answer. I would get into music.

That summer, I went back to the gifted program, for the third and last year I would ever go. Someone gave me their Queen best-of CD. People also talked a lot about Pink Floyd, so I found Wish you Were Here when i got home. At school, I found someone who would burn CDs for me if I did the same for them. My uncle lent me Maggot Brain, and they gave me a copy of The Velvet Underground and Nico. Soon, I became the same way about music as I had with movies. Both became passions. I spent hours indulging in both, and looking for hours on the internet for information. Funnily enough, this sort of internet research is a solitary activity.

I was cool and smart.

Fortunately, in ninth grade, I did find a group of people, and magically enough, we talked, and still do.

For several years, all I talked about was music, movies, and masturbation. However, I learned to talk about something else as well, somewhere along the line, as this blog will attest to: myself!

Conversations used to start, "You know what would be a great time? Whacking it to Funkadelic."

Now they begin, "I will have a great time whacking it to Funkadelic."

I am cool and smart.