We finished the class with standing sprints to Bring Me to Life by Evanescence, a five-minute climb to 4 Non Blondes’ What’s Up, and cooled-down to The Jam’s That’s Entertainment. As the opening bars to Beck’s Loser filled the room, the spinners slowed their pedals to a stop, dropped their heels, and stretched their calf muscles. I turned the music down to a conversational level and said, “This is my favorite song lyric right now.”

Beck sang out: In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.

“Wait, what did he say?”

“In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey. That’s how I feel every day of my life.” No one asked me what I meant. The night before, I posted the lyric on my Facebook page to honor the start of Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month. My theme this year—Tourette Syndrome: So much more than tics. It’s the tics that get all the attention. Those unwanted movements and vocalizations are displayed with either respect or ridicule all over social media—the people who jerk, the people who cuss, the people who whistle, blink and bark.

Yes, the tics are obviously an issue. I disturb the people within earshot with my grunting. I cause people to look away with my long, dramatic, face-scrunching blinks. I’m sure people wonder why I jerk and torque my body as I walk down the street. Scratch my arm until it bleeds. Blow air across my eyes. Lick my lips, wipe them off. Lick my lips, wipe them off. A thousand times a day. The tics are the visible symptom, but there’s so much more. It’s the rest that derails me.

I loaded my Facebook post with hashtags, the disorders that accompany Tourette: #OCD #ADHD #ASD #Anxiety #Insecurity, and the takeaway I want people to grasp: #NotAJoke #NotAPunchline #ItsABigFuckingDeal, and the reason for my post #TouretteAwareness. I considered using #Embarrassment, but it seemed pathetic. But if I’m honest, embarrassment is the biggest one. I’m embarrassed by my tics.  

“What are you working on?” Susan peeked over from her side of the couch as I created an image of my Beck quote with my tagline ‘So much more than tics’ beneath it.

“A Facebook meme for Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month.” A five-minute debate over the proper meaning of ‘meme’ sprung up, and then she volunteered to take over using Canva, the graphic design tool she uses to market her business.

“PowerPoint is fine. Plus, I’m basically done.” A true statement, but I also knew if I let Susan take over, she would advocate against the Beck quote. I already know this approach is weird and oblique. I want people to have to think about it. I want them to arrive at their own understanding of the alienation I feel because of Tourette. I don’t want to hold their hands and lead them through the maze of my mind, even if they never get it. Which is good; I don’t think anybody got it.

My Facebook following is laughable. Of my one hundred or so friends, I suspect sixty or seventy have unfollowed me, bored with my bitchy anti-Trump sentiments, my weekly spin playlists, and my reshares of silly running memes (at least those are actual memes). Only eight people liked my post. Not much of an impact for Tourette Syndrome awareness. I have no idea how many people read it and didn’t like it, or simply didn’t understand. No one commented, no one asked for clarification.

I considered using my pulpit at the front of the spin room to discuss Tourette Awareness Month, and why the chimpanzee quote is significant to me, but it seemed inappropriate. I worried that the Y might get pissed at me for going off script. So, I’m telling you instead.

The fact that the song title is Loser isn’t lost on me. My disgust with Tourette Syndrome is well documented. I spend untold hours bemoaning my ‘loser’ status, feeling sorry for myself, feeling different from everyone else. This is an area I’m trying to improve, trying to transcend. I’ve made progress, but I’m a work in process.

Take a few minutes to listen to Loser. It’s a great and unique song, unlike anything else recorded (lyrics below).

LOSER

In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I’m out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose

Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin’ with a loser and the cruise control
Baby’s in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love-seat

Someone came in sayin’ I’m insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don’t believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin’ all your food stamps and burnin’ down the trailer park
Yo, cut it

Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(Double-barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
‘Cause one’s got a weasel and the other’s got a flag
One’s on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job

The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey-neck and it’s hanging from a pigeon wing
You can’t write if you can’t relate
Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite
That’s choking on the splinters

Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(Get crazy with the cheeze whiz)
Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(Drive-by body pierce)
Yo, bring it on down

Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(I can’t believe you)
Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(Sprechen Sie deutsch, baby?)
Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(Know what I’m sayin’?)

Reunited, and it feels so good
Reunited, ’cause we understood
There’s one perfect fit
And sugar, this one is it
We both are so excited
‘Cause we’re reunited, hey, hey

Reunited, a Peaches and Herb song from my high school years. So distant from the music I preferred—Springsteen, Beatles, Thorogood, CSNY, the Stones, and of course the breaking new wave bands—but in the seventies, in the car, you listened to the radio. You listened to whatever they played. I never liked Reunited, I still don’t, but here it is, in my brain on repeat.

My high school reunion approaches. Easily the most hyped since my twentieth. Maybe more. I’m not sure why, this is my forty-fifth. It lacks the cachet of a milestone. Seems to me that four decades later, celebrations should be ten years apart. Yes, forty-five years is a long time, I haven’t seen any of these people since 2000, but c’mon guys, shouldn’t we wait until fifty? 

Anyway, I’m not going.

Oooh, I think I heard your groan from here! Yes, call me a buzzkill. A loser. A party-pooper. I’m all those things and more. And I’m even curious to see who those people from high school turned into. But I won’t pay the price. I’m not talking about the price of the event, although at $150 for dinner, that seems a little steep, especially for a nondrinker who can’t milk the open bar to get his money’s worth. I’m talking about the agony of the evening.

A few months ago, a guy named Richard emailed me out of the blue. He graduated with me, he said, did I remember him? I don’t. He was out for dinner with high school friends and my name came up. He decided to look me up. This has happened many times over the years. As a prolific blogger and regularly published columnist with a somewhat unique last name, I must be just about the easiest person to find on the internet. Richard lives about an hour away from me. Did I want to get together for drinks? I don’t.

Last month Steve emailed me. He found a tribute I wrote about a high school friend who died of ALS. Same questions as Richard, do I remember him? Do I want to get together, maybe at the reunion? Nope and nope.

Before you assume I was one of those super popular high school kids that everyone revered even though I didn’t take the time to learn anyone’s name, let me assure you, that wasn’t me. I dwelled far left-of-center on the high school popularity bell-curve. If I didn’t know someone, it’s because I assumed they had no interest in meeting me, so I never spoke with them. It’s also possible that my memories of the people I sort of knew in high school were lost in a 1995 bicycle crash that damaged my brain in ways I’m still discovering.

A few days ago, my brother texted me. “I gave your email address to Josh Casson so he could contact you about your reunion. I don’t want you to be surprised when he shows up in your inbox.” Sigh. I’m getting tired of turning people down. I wonder what they think. That I’m bitter about my high school experience, and I haven’t gotten over it? That I didn’t like them forty-five years ago, and I still don’t like them now? That my life turned out badly, and I’m embarrassed to show up? Is that last one so off the mark?

In my email exchange with Steve (the one I don’t know), I wrote: I had sort of dismissed the idea of going to the reunion, crowds and small talk aren’t really my thing. I’m sober and have symptomatic Tourette Syndrome (doubly so when anxious) so it seems like a hard night. TMI? He found me through my blog. It’s likely he already knew this.

Someone giving advice in the comments section will say, “Just go and be yourself. Who cares what those people think?” I called it agony earlier. Hyperbolic, possibly, but for those who suffer from social anxiety, mingling is miserable. And while I’ve grown more comfortable with my Tourette tics over the past few years, the thought of putting them on display in front of one hundred people already in full judgement mode seems too much to bear.

No, I’ll skip this one. Especially since I know we’ll have another reunion in just five short years: The big 5-0. I’ll make that one a priority. And after dinner, when the dancing starts, I’ll ask the DJ to play Reunited. Sorry, just kidding. Instead, I’ll request Call Me by the Blondie—the smash hit recording of my senior year from a band I still listen to today.

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