Who Is Mitchell H B

Whee! This is going to be fun. Oh, dear, yes. I saw ThatsNotMeDamnit on the RecentChanges page among other assorted pages, and thought, "Oh, that's so ME!" Has anyone else seen Being John Malkovich? Remember the scene in which John Cusack is inside Malkovich's head and starts to control his speech? And Malkovich snaps out of it and says, "That's not me, I didn't say that!" I feel that way a lot, like something in me is controlling every damn thing I do, and I don't know how to break through it. Particularly at NBTSC.

Mitchell is very calm and centered. He always seems to be living in a Zen state, and always appears to have something interesting on his mind. He says little, but what he says is usually fairly interesting. He's patient. He's compassionate. He has a quiet smile ready for most people he comes across.

Hah. I say Hah.

Okay. So. How many people know exactly how completely untrue this is? I can probably count them on my fingers. Dawn, Tessa, Rick, Shippy, Charlie, Rachel K, Morgan, Heather, Reeva, Claudia.. Yeah, I think that's about it. Many more people have seen me in pain and heard me tell them how calm I'm not, but I think those are the only people who really, extensively know me outside of my box. Even Robyn, one of the people I care most about and want to be most honest with, still compliments me on my calming energy. [0]

Facts:

• I have an overwhelming erge to please people. So do most of my friends, but they adjust to it by being outgoing and witty and sociable and highly adjustable and emotional. I, on the other 'and, try to make myself as unobtrusive, inoffensive and unnoticeable as possible. I hate the thought of making a bad impression, so I give no impression instead. I stay locked away from other people, and I hate that, and I want to deal with it, but I end up lumping it, and trying harder to hide it. When people tell me about things, I know I tend to look blank and unresponsive. It's not because I don't understand them, or because I'm not feeling anything about what they've said. It's because a) I'm afraid that any reaction I give will be the "wrong" reaction, and b) I've largely forgotten how to communicate how I'm feeling. I can articulate it in words most of the time, but my voice is always soft, and my face is usually... calm. I've really learned to hate that word. Every time I've heard that word directed at me this year, I've thought, "Thank you, but... No! Damnit, no! You're wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

pant, rasp, heavy breathing I see Camp 2000 most as a series of missed oppurtunities because I spent so much time in my box. In '98 and '99 I was able to stop worrying and climb decisively out of my box some time mid-week, but this year I kept going back in, and coming back out, and it was total confusion for two weeks.

• I'm insanely jealous. I've experienced more jealousy in the past year than I did in the previous seventeen years. My biggest jealousy centers on people I want to know, and how well they know each other, how well they get along, and how little I've gotten to know them. If these people are close to friends of mine, the jealousy level rises. Name names? Sure, I feel good and reckless tonight. Samantha, Katie, Aremy, Courtney, Carsie, Jake, Kat, Kat formerly known as Kate, Reanna, Mario, Cory, Caleb, Summer... phew. I was going to mention this on the CampRegrets page, but guess I don't need to now...

• I can be very spiteful. In my mind I snipe at people regularly, and I really really really really don't want them to know I'm sniping at them, another reason I stay in my box so much. One night early in the week of Session One, I was talking to Sonja, and I said something mean about, um... Noam. (Had to decide there if I really wanted to say who it was.) As soon as I said it, I put my hands over my mouth and blushed, and I said, "Did I really say that?" (I think he may have been in the room at the time, too.) And Sonja patted my cheek and said, "Mitchell, it's so impossible to imagine you being spiteful." Whoah. Sonja, there are pieces of me you can't possibly imagine, and they're very close to the surface.

I think that's all the nasty shit, I think. But there are also parts of me that I'm proud of that you may not know about yet. I didn't know about them until fairly recently.

• In three years I've accumulated six years' worth of knowledge about addiction, self-control, control of others, responsibility and its limits, guilt, blame, and forgiveness. I've learned enough from my parents' mistakes to keep me off some very dark paths.

• I've surprised myself by the amount of grace with which I can handle some disagreeable situations.

• I can get along incredibly well with small groups of people, and be very open and unafraid, unless there is *ahem* some special sort of tension or uncertainty in the situation.

• I'm very visual. I got hooked on scrapbooks and collages at Theory, And now I glue every piece of paper or picture or business card that will fit into my book. I can draw, too. I thought I couldn't until recently because I don't draw faces very well, but I learned from Dawn that faces are among the hardest things to draw, and then I realized that I drew everything else very nicely. I can draw a very beautiful, thick-trunked, convincing tree in ten or fifteen minutes, and the scenery around it in another five minutes. Someday soon I'll pull my new set of watercolors out of my backpack, and then some fun will be had.

• I am compassionate. Perhaps not as much so as a lot of you seem to think, but I understand a lot of people better than I would have given myself credit for. I've helped people heal.

• I'm a moral person. My morality is still fairly basic, but it's very solid. I'm taking drum lessons from a talented man whom I can't respect personally because of past actions, and I enjoy learning from him at the same time that I know we probably couldn't ever really be friends. This is weird. I don't know how to deal with it, but the fact that I'm conflicted about him makes me glad, if only because it proves I'm feeling something.

• I'm writing well, better than I have in a good while.

• I'm contributing lots of time and energy as a volunteer at Northwest Bookfest. Tomorrow I'm going to act as a stage manager there, introducing the authors who are speaking and escorting them on and off the stage. I will be an Authority Figure (eep!). It will be up to me to keep things running smoothly for three and a half hours. 'Twill be hectic and much fun. It also gives me an excuse to go to bed now and stop rambling. Whew. I had more to vent than I thought.

Mitchell softly pads away, thinking that he should write to Robyn and thank her very very very much for starting this page

[0] Clarification: Robyn says that because I've never let her see me any other way. I'm not saying it's her fault that she keeps me inside my box.