When I was a kid, I had no idea how offensive this should be. Sometimes your adult self really cringes at your kid self's ignorance.
Yeah.
Fag
was big as an insult when I was in school, and I didn't know until my late teens/early 20s that it actually was a slur used against homosexual people. When it first made the rounds at school, my friend and I even looked it up in a dictionary, because we couldn't figure out where it came from. We saw "bundle of sticks" and thought it was the stupidest word to use as an insult.
Thinking back on the games that my friends and I played when we weren't under adult supervision, we fell almost entirely into the "girls have social play" thing. One of my friends had a swingset that had some ropes to climb, and we'd play on that and pretend that we were making a TV show about wild animals in the jungle, and then the lions (or whatever) would attack and we'd climb all over everything while still trying to "broadcast."
Actually, we had a few similar TV show games. I remember another one where someone would be the newscaster, and she'd be "reporting" while the rest of us would act out what she was saying behind her, and try to keep up with getting the narration and action to coordinate, with the rule the newscaster couldn't turn around to look at what was happening (because that would be unproffesional.) I think the story was just about always either a war or a riot, so we'd usually be tackling each other for most of it.
Also, the youngest sister of one of my friends has Down Syndrome, and when she was about 2 or 3, and we were about 10, her doctor or occupational therapist or someone said that she was getting too isolated, and that she should be included more when the older kids were playing. So when we wanted to play tag, and she was supposed to be playing with us, she was way too little to run, so we'd sit her in the middle of the lawn, and say that anyone sitting next to her and holding her hand was on base and couldn't be tagged. So, from her perspective, it was a whole bunch of older neighborhood kids who'd sit down and play with her, and she loved it.
Smear the queer is the worst name, ever.
When I was a kid, I had no idea how offensive this should be. Sometimes your adult self really cringes at your kid self's ignorance.
Seriously, which is why I prefaced that it was a un-PC name.
Depending on the context (whether it was an adjective or a noun), back in those days queer=stupid, or queer=a stupid jerk, etc.
"Hassle the asshole" or some such would have been fundamentally less offensive, but we wouldn't have thought so at the time.
So when we wanted to play tag, and she was supposed to be playing with us, she was way too little to run, so we'd sit her in the middle of the lawn, and say that anyone sitting next to her and holding her hand was on base and couldn't be tagged. So, from her perspective, it was a whole bunch of older neighborhood kids who'd sit down and play with her, and she loved it.
That's sweet!
re: dodgeball.
I needed glasses rather badly from at least the age of 4. Due to various and sundry problems I actually got them at around the age of 9 or 10. The dodgeball games from ages 6-9 were really unfun, in as much as they were basically me standing around waiting to be hit by something hard, and then having people jeer at me for not dodging things that I couldn't see.
Swimming was much better. Even with lousy eyesight it's hard to miss a state the size of Michigan.
I remember another one where someone would be the newscaster, and she'd be "reporting" while the rest of us would act out what she was saying behind her, and try to keep up with getting the narration and action to coordinate, with the rule the newscaster couldn't turn around to look at what was happening (because that would be unproffesional.) I think the story was just about always either a war or a riot, so we'd usually be tackling each other for most of it.
Awesome. And a popular comedy improv game.
So when we wanted to play tag, and she was supposed to be playing with us, she was way too little to run, so we'd sit her in the middle of the lawn, and say that anyone sitting next to her and holding her hand was on base and couldn't be tagged.
So sweet!
It looks like the house and senate have reached a compromise on the budget. Apparently the combination of $35 billion of cuts in Social programs ($10 billion from Medicaid), combined with $70 - $100 billion in tax cuts will help reduce the deficit.
More tax cuts? Fucking hell.
Hil's tag variation sounds a bit like what "circle of friends" is supposed to be, if I understand the game right. But I can't remember what other variations of tag there are. Freeze tag, right? What was TV tag?
I want PE at work. Just to run around and tackle people in the middle of the day.
new color faceplates for my cellphone are ordered. YAY.
Seriously, which is why I prefaced that it was a un-PC name.
Oh, I did see that, Frank. I didn't mean anything against anyone talking about it. I just--seeing it today--I've flinched every time I've read it. Ben and friends were playing a game called Suicide (you throw a tennis ball at someone, or against the wall, but at someone--I don't know, I got a convoluted explanation of it from him). I nearly freaked the first time he told me he and his friends were playing
suicide.
Gah.
Depending on the context (whether it was an adjective or a noun), back in those days queer=stupid, or queer=a stupid jerk, etc.
Yep. And literal child that I was, I knew it meant weird and didn't know the other meaning 'til much later, either.
