I’d never seen this performance before. I was in the army by that time so I missed it. It’s interesting how Hope Sandoval’s stage presence is so commanding though she hardly moves, barely does a thing. She just has a still sort of confidence, a serenity, that defies all notions of how one should be on stage but it works perfectly for her. It’s like not only does she not care in the least that anyone is watching, but she doesn’t even know. As with Rorschach in Watchmen, she’s not here with us — we’re here with her.

I liked Home Before Dark probably more than other people would.

The reason is that I identified with the protagonist just so very much. She’s a misfit, a nine-year-old journalist and someone out of place no matter where she is. She’s precocious and adults constantly doubt her knowledge and capabilities and of course lie to her. One of the first few lines of her narration is in fact, “Since I’m a kid, people lie to me all the time.”

When I was that age, I’d been reading adult-level books for four years already. I knew more than almost any adult around me about anything. I constantly had people explaining topics to me that I knew far better than they did — and would get very angry when I demonstrated my knowledge and caught them in their obvious and absurd lies. So yes, I identify with Hilde very much indeed.

Also something important and related. It’d be called “gaslighting” today I guess, but it was perfectly handled how the adults in her life constantly invalidate and discredit her very accurate perceptions of events, even attempting to cajole her into denying her own experiences. I remember that all too well. There was no quicker way at the time to spark adult rage than to call them out on this!

So yes, I do have a lot of leftover resentment from that time. Watching the show was a way to disencumber myself of a bit of it.

Also familiar: even her own father rails at her to just be more normal and to try to act more like everyone else. “Dammit, Hilde, why can’t you just be a little kid for just once in your life?!” is a line he uses. My dad said nearly identical things to me constantly, just with even more cursing.

The scene where Hilde is walking into her school and everyone is gazing at her with undisguised derision and disdain — I’ve lived that. It was perfectly done. The writer who wrote that had almost certainly lived that too.

There’s another great scene with the principal telling the protagonist’s mother that something Hilde does is “developmentally inappropriate for her age.” I had teachers tell me and my parents that same phrase numerous times, including after one incident that was very similar to what Hilde herself did in the show. To my mom’s credit, she responded, “I doubt it, since he’s been doing it since he was six.” (I was 10 at the time.)

Writing a paper in my spare time (as Hilde does) is literally what I almost got expelled for in ninth grade, so Hilde having the same issues is very resonant with me indeed.

It’s hard for me to determine if the show is good or not because of the consonance with my own life and experiences. I think so, but I cannot separate the two enough to tell.

As I’ve said before, I’m mostly glad I am bad at math because if I had any talent in that area it’s highly likely I would’ve gravitated to academia.

I think that would’ve made me mostly poor and unhappy. (It’s great for some people, even some friends. But would not have been for me.) Since I was told I’d never succeed in academia because of my lack of ability and interest in math, instead I ended up much richer and worked much less to get farther in life.

So…accidental win.

The main thing the pandemic reveals is how deeply disgraceful our society is. Yes, the US is a failed state, and a particularly absurd one given its vast wealth, but it has failed in a debased and degraded way so aburd that it’d be funny if it didn’t harm and kill so many people.

It’s like watching a clown car go off a cliff while playing the soundtrack to Cats. It’s a fucking ludicrous tragedy that was utterly preventable and yet no one had enough will and foresight to lift a single finger to put a halt to it — with of course centrists screaming that anything else was impossible as they frantically snip the brake lines, put a brick on the accelerator pedal and remove all the guardrails.