PART 1 Summary
Trevor was voracious and hyperactive in his childhood. He had a criminal and cop relationship with his mother. When tricks no longer worked on Trevor, his mother changed tactics and started writing him letters in cases of misbehaviors or whooping his ass in cases of major infractions. When receiving an accusatory missive, Trevor would write counterarguments in reply. This process could go back and forth for days.
At Maryvale, whenever Trevor found loopholes in a Catholic rule, he would find his way around it. For example, he was not allowed to communion because he's not Catholic. He thought the rule was illogical and he was dying for grape juice and crackers offered in communion. Therefore, he broke the rules by furtively drinking an entire bottle of grape juice and an entire bag of Eucharist. A priest turned Trevor in and thus he ended up being punished by the school and sent to a shrink. Before long, Trevor quitted school after the principal threatened to expel him if he did not shape up. To his surprise, his mother did not give him a good hiding but instead sided with him. Among other claims to fame, Trevor was notorious for burning down a white family's house where his mother's boyfriend Abel rented a garage. One of Trevor's uncle even dubbed him "Terror".
Trevor inherited from his mother the ability to forget the pain. In spite of numerous hidings he got, he never shrunk from trying something new.
PART 2 Expressions
1. At my gran’s house I always got seconds, which none of the other kids got.
seconds: 第二份食物；還可以表示“次品”--clothes or other goods that are cheaper than usual because they are not perfect
2. I prided myself on being the ultimate prankster.
prankster: someone who plays tricks on people to make them look silly
prank: a trick? eg. a childish prank
3. Someday I’m going to catch you and put you away or the rest of your life.
put sb away: informal, to put sb in a prison or in a mental hospital
If you are found guilty, the judge is going to put you away for life.
4. My mom was forever trying to rein me in.
rein sb in: 1. to make a horse go more slowly by pulling on the reins
2. to start to control a situation more strictly
The government is reining in public expenditure.
5. If we were having a real, full-on argument or if I’d gotten in trouble at school, I’d find more accusatory missives waiting for me when I got home.
missive: a letter. often used humorously
An anonymous missive had been pushed under her door.
Vs Correspondence: the letters that someone sends and receives, especially official or business letters
A secretary came in twice a week to deal with his correspondence.
6. For major infractions, my mom went with the ass-whooping.
infraction: an act of breaking a rule of law
minor infractions of the rules
On his way he was stopped by the traffic police for some real or invented infraction.
7. My mom would have given me proper sit-down hidings if I’d given her the opportunity, but she could never catch me.
hiding: spoken, beating, a severe physical punishment
You'll get a good hiding when you come home!
8. She got her licks in where she could, her belt or maybe a shoe, administered on the fly.
lick: informal, an act of hitting sb
on the fly:? while dealing with a situation, rather than before dealing with it
So far, policy is being made on the fly.
9. The third visit to the shrink, and the last straw, came in grade six.
shrink: (n.) 心理醫生, headshrinker 的簡稱
the last straw/ the straw that breaks the camel's back: the last problem in a series of problems that finally makes you give up, get angry etc
Making me work late on Friday was the last straw.?
10. I think he thought he was giving me an ultimatum that would get me to shape up.
shape up: 1. to improve one's behavior or work
Your kids had better shape up, because I'm in no mood to fool around.
2. to make progress in a particular way
Ken's plans for the business are shaping up nicely.
shape up or ship out: spoken, used to tell sb that if they do not improve, they will be made to leave a place or their job
PART 3 Thoughts
But I was blessed with another trait I inherited from my mother: her ability to forget the pain in life. I remember the thing that caused the trauma, but I don't hold on to the trauma. I never let the memory of something painful prevent me from trying something new. If you think too much about the ass-kicking your mom gave you, or the ass-kicking that life gave you, you'll stop pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules. It's better to take it, spend some time crying, then wake up the next day and move on. You'll have a few bruises and they'll remind you of what happened and that's okay. But after a while the bruises fade, and they fade for a reason-because now it's time to get up to some shit again.
“好了傷疤忘了疼”這句話人們常用來做反面教材，而Trevor卻說這是他一個很重要的能力。最近剛讀完Patrick Modinano的《青春咖啡館》，小說里的女主人公Rouge整個青春都在逃離她不幸的童年，她無數次出走，隱姓埋名但結果卻是在童年的不幸里越陷越深，她曾有一個穩定的婚姻，也有一個真心愛她的情人，但是她母親的不幸和父親的缺失始終像夢魘一樣纏繞著她，她越是幸福和安穩越是不堪承受回憶之痛。最后在她和情人即將展開幸福生活的時候，她選擇了跳窗自殺。現實里也有很多時候我們沉浸在過去的傷痛里無法自拔，比如因為曾經失敗的婚姻而不敢再去相信愛情，因為曾經失敗的事業而不敢再去折騰，因為曾被信賴的人背叛過而不敢再去相信身邊的人，等等，即使那些事情已經不再產生現實意義上的影響，但我們仍會用自己過去的傷痛來束縛今天的自己。但如果我們能拋下過去，不管那些新的嘗試是否成功，但至少我們會獲得內心的輕松和平和。節日期間看了幾期《極速前進》，看到我的女神賈靜雯臉上洋溢的幸福真的好羨慕和傾佩她，還記得曾經娛樂新聞里經常是她以淚洗面的樣子，如今她真正地放下了曾經的傷痛并收獲了美好的愛情、重獲了快樂。想起了Oscar Wilde的一句話：“過去的事情唯一可愛之處在于它已經過去。”("The one charm of the past is that it is the past.") 所有傷痛和不幸的最好結局是：一切已成為過去，而我已重新在路上。
