I am such a wuss.

A lifetime ago, Kara chose good cries.

I bit the insides of my cheeks to stop from crying during Steel Magnolias.

I have never read it, but I saw the 1949 film version of Little Women and, though it is not the one with Katherine Hepburn, thought it was superior to the 33 version. Victor Heerman wrote the adapted screenplay for both (thank you TCM), and some elements that seem rushed in the earlier movie have a more suitable pace in this one.
Anyway.
One such scene stayed with me. For weeks after I saw it, I would tear up whenever I thought of the scene where Jo reveals that she's cut her hair. Her mother is taking a train to tend to their father, and after having a blow-up with her aunt when she was supposed to ask her for the money, Jo takes matters in her own hands. She comes back to their house with all the money. "Jo, how did you come by this?" "I didn't beg, borrow, or steal. I sold what was rightfully mine," she says, taking her hat off. Her family gasps. Her sisters begin to fuss over her. "Jo your hair!" But their mother silences them. She touches the side of Jo's head and says, "Your hair will grow back, and it will be lovely, but you will never look more beautiful than you do right now." I guess that love for and pride in your family is what touched me so much and that's the devotion I hope I can show to my family.

I remember being very upset when I finished the Last Battle and found that Susan had forsaken her place in Narnia for... really sex. I don't think I quite grasped that at the time (I read a J. K. Rowling interview where she talked about how angry that made her.), but I think it was the tone of betrayal. Her brothers, sister, cousin, and all are basically devoted readers of their own story who want to revisit/reread Narnia as adults, and since I was a loved the stories, it felt very personal. Or something like that. I don't know.
Anyway. Whenever I would start to tear up, I'd sing a light song from the oldies station that was stuck in my head. "Little Old Lady from Pasadena," I think.

The only comparable cry to that -- one where I would think of the story weeks later and still tear up -- was the first time I made it all the way through the miniseries versions of Winds of War and War and Remembrance. The story revolves around an American naval family during the 30s and 40s. The younger son Byron marries Natalie Jastrow (played so wonderfully by Ali McGraw in the first series), who gets trapped in Europe along with her newborn son and her uncle Professor Aaorn Jastrow when war breaks out. They're Jewish, so you know at least one of them has to die, but the two series together are almost fifty hours, and they all stay alive until about the forty-ninth hour.
A few hours before that, the three are transferred to Theresienstadt, the so-called Paradise Ghetto. (The one from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.) When he arrives, Aaron initially refuses the window-dressing status as one of the community elders but after some brutal coercion, he reconsiders.
Similarly, after the same scene, he retires to his room, retrieves his conversion documents -- Aaron has been an atheist for decades but flirted with Christianity and was even baptised -- and rips them up. He had been counting on them as an ace-in-the-hole, but after the incident, a voice-over from his journal tells us that he feels like Jonah, having run away from God for so long.
I am always a bit troubled by this scene. There has been little build-up to it. We see Aaron tutoring other children in Hebrew and insisting that Natalie brush up on it, but that's it. Without a more gradual conversion, it seems ... too like the smarmy "there are no atheists in foxholes." Surely, the book would do a better job. But yeah.
Eventually, anticipating the Allies overtaking the ghetto, the entire town is liquidated and sent east to Auschwitz. Since he's an old man, Aaron is selected for the gas chamber upon arrival. He recites the 23rd Psalm as he strips and staggers among the others and finally falls, coughing to the floor.
Between this and his conversion, you're tempted to think maybe he is with God until the gravelly-voiced narrator tells us Aaron's body was cremated with the others, and the ashes were dumped into the river. "The atoms that made up Aaron Jastrow's body flow through his native Poland, past villages and farms, before pouring into the icy Baltic."

This is the worst part of my job. I don't know how to tell you this, but your son is fat.

Susie chose Doctor visits.

The PTA in Rockdale County was a bit nosey. I'm not sure how the subject came up, if my parents asked them, or if they had spies at PE, but they had noticed that I was not very athletic and a little -- oh how best to put this delicately? -- on the husky side. Their solution: get me involved in sports.
I'm not sure if my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. O'Kelly, was in on it, but she did enthusiastically endorse the local soccer program, and since I had a kind of crush on her, I insisted that we sign up.
The less said about me soccer career the better. My poor parents deserve medals for suffering through my painful attempts at playing soccer every Saturday. How embarrassing it must have been for them! I, at the time, did not have the sense to be embarrassed by how I would start off running after the ball only to kind of dawdle after it because of my size -- husky, as the PTA helpfully pointed out -- and lack of interest. It's only going to come back this way again. Why rush?
Why couldn't I be the goalie? They just stood in one place.
So yeah. I signed up for two years of that before wising up.

The PTA was not done with me yet. Oh no. I actually forget what their intermediary suggestion was after I stopped playing soccer. But, during my third grade year, they finally told my parents maybe something was physically wrong with me and that it would be best to take me to a doctor to be on the safe side.
A boy who is a little overweight, doesn't like sports, and prefers to read? In Rockdale County? Must be something wrong with him.
So my parents took me to a doctor so that he might diagnose my fat ass.
I remember Mom sitting me down at the kitchen table to explain why they were taking me to a doctor.
I bawled.
I felt like such a disappointment especially since my parents seemed to agree. Why else would they go along with all this? As distasteful as the idea was and as isolated from my family as it made me feel, a part of me also secretly hoped there would be something wrong with me for all the attention I would get. (Take that, Ethan!)
So they took me to the doctor. I don't remember much of the examination except that the doctor had me walk back and forth a bit. Then, he said, "Apart from an odd walk, there's nothing wrong with him. He's just not athletic. He'd rather read."
"I could have told you that for free," I said.
If it ever comes up, I might blame that doctor's visit for making gay.

And eventually, the problem took care of itself. I hit a growth spurt, and it all went vertical.

It holds up to three gallons!

Katie's quote.

I think this means that we are forever learning things first taught in kindergarten. It takes longer for these simple things to sink in than it did for previous generations. I always have to stop myself from making snap judgments or from being so hateful of other people.
I'll catch Miss Leigh or Mom chastising my younger cousins for something, and I'll think, "I do that all the time."
And then I get in even more trouble for writing these angry flashes in a blog.
This modern learning disability exacerbated by technology led my friend Linzy to shake her head. "Man, those blogs are of the devil. I just talk about people behind their back." No paper trail.
She is a sensible neo-Luddite of shit-causing.

Or

I think this means I should start wearing adult undergarments. Here I've been taking care of myself like a sucker and letting my body be a time thief. Think of how much more productive I could be! And no one will want to hang around me, so I'll have that much more time to work. I will finally be a multi-tasker and will stop letting my bowels and urethra boss me around.