My father (R.I.P. 1989) had no filter. I’ve had to think about him from this peculiar distance for most of my life, and thank the gods I knew him as long as I did, because I don’t know if I would understand myself as much as I do without that solid decade.

Near the end of that decade, he acquired VCR, then rented a number of really challenging films for a nine year old to wander into the room and watch.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Altered States. Rocky Horror Picture Show (calling Dr. Freud, bring clamps) and oh gosh, and I sort of wish this wasn’t so, but among these mind-bending stalwarts I have to list A Clockwork Orange.

I was nine. Maybe ten.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m a bad person because my daddy didn’t monitor my viewing. I’m saying these are some heavy duty psychological loads for an absorbent mind to bear. The circumstances of my life had already conspired against me being normal (Montessori is scarily effective, for the record.)  Now I had the mental imagery to suit, stewing in my preadolescent brain, waiting for me to stumble into my libido.

But I like who I am. I don’t think I’m a bad person because I have peculiar tastes. I’ve never thought that, no matter how often people have tried to tell me it was so.

I still miss him, for the record. 1989.