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Joshua Alan Doetsch

~ Author & Scrivnomancer

Joshua Alan Doetsch

Tag Archives: misfits

Bugs n’ Stuff

15 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

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Tags

after school program, bug facts, bugs, bugs are cool, geek talk, geeks, good policing, indirect, insect facts, insects, memories, misfits, suicide, suicide prevention, talking someone down

Good policing. And smart. Sometimes a hurt is too aggravated, and you can’t approach it directly. You have to find some indirect vector, just some random subject. Something a person geeks out over.

In college, I was part of an after school theatre program at a grade/middle school. There was this one kid, bit of a misfit, quiet, didn’t emote very much, head in a book a lot (usually about insects), or playing with plastic bugs.

One day, this kid got into a minor fight with another. It broke up quickly, but it was enough contact that it had him in tears, so he hid under a table. It was the time that this group had to change rooms. The kid stayed under the table. One of the high school students who volunteered, told the kid it was time to go. The high schooler got angrier and angrier, and sterner and sterner.

He wasn’t seeing what was happening. The kid didn’t like emoting big at the best of times. He absolutely did NOT want anyone seeing him crying. The problem was, he was not emoting this fear in any obvious way, so the high schooler took it as nonchalant challenging of his authority.

Luckily, misfits can smell their own. I told the high schooler to take five. I got on the floor and slid under the table. “Hi,” I said. I was just barely wise enough then to know not to talk about it directly. So…we talked bugs (because bugs are cool). I threw down on insect facts. He opened up like a factoid volcano. He knew his stuff. He went on and on (the way I had done, a shy/awkward kid, when someone knew to get me to open up with dinosaurs/vampires/animal facts).

For five or ten minutes, we sat under the table talking bugs. We never talked about the fight or the tears. Eventually, he looked up at me and asked, “Do I look OK?” (translation: “Does it look like I’ve been crying.”) I carefully looked him over and said he was good to go. And off he went to the next room.

Being able to directly confront a problem is an awesome skill. But sometimes a roundabout method is needed. Pay attention to what folk geek out over.

Also, bugs are cool.

Ode To a One-Eyed Cat

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

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Tags

black cat, broken toys, deviations, malfunctions, misfit toys, misfits, my cat, oddities, one-eyed cat, Raven, scars, symmetry

Give me the misfits.
Give me the malfunctions.
Give me the broken toys.
Give me these charming scars.
These pretty deviations from symmetry.

I say your worst side’s your best side

03 Friday Aug 2007

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

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Tags

misfits

The only problem with falling in love with people’s flaws—with seeing the exquisitely awkward, late-blooming grace of the misfit, is the frustration that they don’t often see it in themselves, don’t believe you when you point it out.  But all in all and I still love those pretty flaws, those deviations from symmetry.

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