Catalogue (continued)

A fairly comprehensive list of memories that, for a variety of reasons, continue to haunt me:

• Somewhere around preschool, drawing on my brother's shirt from the hospital (with his consent), right before our parents asked us not to. 

• Somewhere around preschool, joking with a friend on my soccer team about how we were carrying the team and scoring all the goals. Later, I recounted this moment to my mother. Her response: "When did you score a goal?" I hadn't. (He had scored many.)

• While very young, at the JCCA's sports camp, during an explanation of the rules of our hockey game, raising my hand and asking how many innings we would play. I had recently learned the word "innings" in relation to baseball and assumed it applied to all sports; I thought I was showing off here. But everyone in the gym laughed, and after the laughter had died down, the counselor haughtily said, "They're called periods, and we will play three."

• While young, at perhaps the same camp, losing track, along with a few other boys, of our group on the way to the pool. One boy asked where we would change into our swimsuits, but we hadn't been to the pool before and didn't know where the locker room was (or even perhaps that we were supposed to go to one). I suggested we just change there on the deck, in the middle of a sea of people (both sexes, mostly much older). Everyone seemed to go along with this. We never were fully nude, but we had started to draw some looks when, at that moment, the counselor found us and shepherded us to the locker room. I can still remember the feeling of the rough bench, made of stone, against the top of my bare ass.

• In kindergarten, being bullied by a boy named Travis. 

• Somewhere early in elementary school, going with my mother to a computer store near our house after a long day of errands. I mentioned while we were nearing the store that I had to go to the bathroom. My mother asked if I could hold it. I said I thought I could. We went inside, and if I remember correctly, my mother asked if I could use the employees' restroom and was denied. Shortly thereafter, and without warning, I began to urinate in my pants (luckily while standing on a piece of cardboard on the floor, which was down because of some floor or carpeting replacement, I think). When I had managed to stop myself, with the cashier and my mother staring at me the whole time, an employee led me into the back to use the employees' restroom. Somehow, I managed to go some more. I can't remember if we continued shopping after this incident.

• In third grade, calling my friend a name because I felt left out of their comics-drawing club and then crying when confronted about it by my teacher.

• The summer after third grade, feeling as though I should be crying when I found out my grandfather had died but not being able to.

• In third or fourth grade, during a class sit-down about a war going on over multiple recesses between the boys and the girls, making a point and then saying no when my teacher asked, with a look of surprise, "But you weren't a part of this, were you?" She assumed I was telling the truth and moved on. Some girls shot me dirty looks.
  
• As an 11-year-old (I think), going into the conference swim meet as the No. 1 seed (when someone else dropped out) but finishing second. I was never that close to winning just about anything (individually) athletically again.

• Sometime late in elementary school, forgetting what my parents looked like for a moment during class.

• Somewhere late in elementary school or early middle school, getting in an argument with my dad and being pushed against the wall. It's the only time I can remember him laying a hand on me.

• Just before or just after fifth grade, attending my brother's baseball game with my mother. A more popular girl from school (with whom I was friendly) was there, and my mother called her over and started a conversation. Surely for my benefit, my mother asked something along the lines of who the hot boys in our grade would be the following year. The girl started ticking off names and, after a pause, said, "And of course your son." Right as those words were coming out, I choked on the mint in my mouth.

• Having a crush on the same girl all through elementary school and then, on a field trip for school, seeing her holding hands with one of my good friends.

• In sixth grade, nominating myself to be the lead in a team production because a kid I didn't like had nominated himself and I for some reason thought that would help prevent him from being chosen. Despite having no friends, I somehow won the vote. The play was the life of Jackie Robinson. I was Jackie Robinson. In retrospect, they might have voted for me because they were cruel.

• In sixth grade, being bullied by a boy (and good friend) named Jon, reluctantly telling my mother about it and asking her not to say anything to anyone, and then getting yelled at by Jon (after she had called his mother) that I needed my mother to fight my battles. Not long after, we were asked to make a list of friends whom we wanted in our cabin during sixth-grade camp, and at least one, we were told, would be placed in our cabin. One of the only people I could think of was Jon, and so I wrote him down. But he had already stopped speaking to me and would not really speak to me again. (He was not placed in my cabin, of course. But neither was anyone else from the short list of names of acquaintances that I cobbled together.)

• At sixth-grade camp, being made fun of for a pair of yellow sweatpants. They said "Mizzou" on them. They previously belonged to my mother.

• In middle school, at Hebrew school, having only one person (or no one) to talk to before class started, when everyone would congregate next to a snack bar. Everyone went to a different school from the one I went to, and I was too shy to try to talk to them, even though I had been going to synagogue with many (or most) of them for years. I was almost silent in class, too. The teacher would call on me because I knew the answers. That made it worse with the other kids.

• In seventh grade, inviting a popular girl from my bus to my Bar Mitzvah because my mother was insisting that I invite equal numbers of boys and girls. I didn't expect her to come. She did. I don't know if we had ever spoken directly. We didn't then either. 

• In seventh or eighth grade, attending a birthday party and then retreating to the corners of the room when several people started playing spin the bottle. I wasn't friends with most of the people there and was petrified.

• In seventh or eighth grade, going to the movies with a friend and running into a girl we went to elementary school with. He started talking to her and eventually made some comment to her like "Oh, you remember ...?" She had no idea who I was. Almost the exact same thing happened at a bar while in college, with a girl who went to my middle school and high school.

• In eighth or ninth grade, accidentally hitting my brother in the ear while swinging a scooter to try to keep him back.

• In ninth grade, having to eat lunch by myself because most of my (few) friends from middle school ate lunch at a table picked out by a girl I "dated" in eighth grade and who thereafter shunned me for no evident reason.

• As a sophomore in high school, asking perhaps the most popular girl who had (or maybe has) consistently talked to me to be my girlfriend and having her accept. Then, about a week later, having her break up with me after one "date." She said she didn't understand what the point was of dating because nothing had changed from when we were friends. I didn't have the courage to tell her it was because I didn't know how to act in a relationship; instead I mumbled something (over the phone) about it not having to be the way she said. She would have been my second kiss, but we never kissed. She said almost nothing to me for the remainder of high school.

• Sometime about midway through high school, arguing with my brother while playing tennis during a vacation because I didn't understand why he seemed to always feel the need to outdo me. I (angrily) tried to reason with him, but I don't think I told him then that I was proud of him. I've told him since. I don't know if he understands. I am, though.

• Somewhere about the same time, stealing a turkey from a family dinner after an argument with my father. I mostly stand by it. My family won't let me forget it.

• As a junior in high school, being promptly outswum by two people who had just joined the team. As a senior, they led the team to the state meet; I was only an alternate (for the second or third time, which doesn't include my junior year). Those on the state team all made shirts; although the three of us alternates (my brother and a friend included) trained with them and traveled with them, they didn't even tell us about the shirts. I never got to swim at the state meet. My mother bought me a shirt from the meet because she was proud of me. It made it hurt even more.

• As a junior in high school, breaking up with a girlfriend (without a great reason) and immediately starting to date another girl.

• As a junior or senior in high school, making a careless joke to a sixth grader whom I was in charge of for camp and watching him burst into tears. At the time, I kept thinking about how much trouble I would get in if he told the teachers what I had said. I was an idiot.

• As a senior in high school, attempting to commit to band in a way I had not before and having to share responsibilities with another trombonist. I then didn't practice enough for an audition and fell from first to third chair for the second semester. I switched from the band class to an independent study because I wanted to take AP biology. I committed even less.

• As a senior in high school, losing my best friend because I felt neglected while he focused all his attention on his (new) girlfriend.

• As a freshman in college, losing my roommate as a friend because of the way he interacted with his girlfriend. I should have talked to him about it. We were both nonconfrontational and passive-aggressive, so that never happened. One night, a couple of friends and I continued to make noise even as he tried to go to bed. He eventually got mad and stormed out. He may still hold a grudge against me for the way everything went down. I bear him no ill will.

• As a freshman in college, making this other guy (a senior) on the water polo team keep repeating himself and finally telling him I didn't know what he was talking about. He gave me a strange look and dived in the pool. I thought he was talking about a "wetsuit," and I had no frame of reference because I had never been scuba diving. I realized later that night that he was talking about a "wet suit," as in a swimsuit that has been dipped in water, with which I had had plenty of experience.

• As a sophomore in college, finding out that the swim team that I covered for the newspaper made fun of me when I wasn't around. I used to lead off interviews by letting them know that I used to swim myself; I thought it helped avoid getting answers like "I use my hands like paddles." As things turned out, it only helped label me a loser.

• As a junior in college, in my intermediate writing class, having the class critique an article I wrote and then being asked by the professor, "What did you think?" I responded, "To be honest, I thought this was just terrible, but maybe there's something I can glean here." By "this," I meant my article. I realized later that everyone probably assumed I meant the critique.

• As a junior in college, being told by the girl I still considered to be my best friend that we couldn't talk anymore because she thought I was too negative. 

• As a junior in college, relaying a part of a story from high school that I didn't realize could be taken the wrong way in that particular conversation; a relative of the other person involved in that conversation had recently died.

• As a junior in college, attempting to kiss a friend (who I thought was flirting with me) at a party, being rejected and spending most of the rest of the night on the couch, pouting. Many of my friends refer to this as the best of all the parties we attended in college (not for any reason connected to that incident).

• As a senior in college, making a(nother) careless joke to a child I was in charge of and watching him burst into tears. Because of a certain cultural difference, I didn't understand that it would be construed that way; he was my favorite kid in the whole camp. I also made another one of my kids cry when we were playing outside and were perhaps being a little too rough. It took me over an hour to calm him down. I lied in the process. I didn't much like that kid, but I felt such shame.

• In college, losing the same friend multiple times and then somehow, after making up, losing her and another friend when they started dating. They're still together. I wish them nothing but the best. But I miss them.

• Shortly after college ended, having a friend's freshman roommate contact me over Facebook chat to say he thought we could have been good friends had things gone a bit differently. I didn't know what to say, so I agreed, and he ended the conversation shortly thereafter. A year or so later, he committed suicide.

• As an intern, while at a brunch with some people we didn't know, taking a picture of a girl in a low-cut shirt because a friend dared me to take one and send it to him. (The stakes were impossibly low, but my competitiveness makes me do just about anything on a dare.) She noticed. She happened to be friends with one of my friends and told her. Awkward moments happened the rest of the summer.

• As an adult, posting something insensitive on a Facebook friend's pro-Occupy Wall Street status.

• As a new hire at The Times, inserting an error into an article by changing the attribution.

• Talking about my history in music in much more grandiose terms than it warrants. To a lesser degree, the same can be said of my history in athletics.