Institutions

You think of your family and how they shape and mold you, seep into every story, dominate every personal history. You think of your sister, five years older than you, forcing you and your younger brother to play house. You remember playing school while she taught you and your brother. You remember the collaboration in the games, the peacefulness, the lack of aggression. You remember wanting to play fight with your brother but the game morphing into karate school with your older sister as the sensei. You remember wanting to look like your favorite wrestlers, wanting so badly to simulate their face paint. You remember your sister learning the patterns and painting your face with her make-up and lip-glosses. You remember wearing her choir-dress to play as the kilted Scotsman Rowdy Roddy Piper. You remember appropriating her showgirl Halloween costume’s neon pink, tailed blazer, complete with requisite glittered trim and cuffs, for a ring jacket matching the flamboyant entrance attire of other wrestlers. You think how television permeates through your stories along with your family. You remember recording free previews from the Disney channel when it still had to be ordered. You remember watching The Mickey Mouse Club, Bonkerz, The Care Bears, and My Little Pony. You remember watching the violence of Terminator 2: Judgment Day after family trips to the beach and almost wearing out your copy of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. You remember watching the dating show Singled Out over dinner with your family and now watching King of Queens or The Newly Wed Game. You think back to trying to convince your brother of the merits of the new My Little Pony cartoon while he watched Michael Bay’s Transformers films. You remember your mother indulging your love of low budget horror films and wrestling tapes on trips to laundry-mat video stores. You remember watching and rewatching your sisters favorite musicals. You catch yourself humming songs from Grease, The Sound of Music, and Rent. You realize you can not decide if you admire Tyler Durden from Fight Club more than Billy Bigelow from Carousal. You think to Bam Bam Bigelow, one of your favorite wrestlers because of his flame-themed outfit and fire tattoos on his skull. You remember your brother watching wrestling with you but leaving the room bored, asking you to retrieve him if the women wrestlers came on again.