I’m Coming Out, So You Better Get The Perky Started

Hey y’all, it’s your old pal teenchy, subbing for Rob tonight. Have we ever had a dedicated volleyball arc? The closest we’ve come during my tenure here was last spring when one of Mimi’s softball players, Linda Carr, got burnt out on playing for the Valley Elites while not being TCFS so she quit the Valley Elites but went off to college to play volleyball anyway. Valerie Okumbe was a player (and rejector of infamous locker denizen Jamar Gaddis) for Milford (not the Valley Elites) in 2009, but she was never actually shown playing volleyball. I defer to our TWIM statisticians for additional background.

So we may finally get a bit of a fall girls’ sports angle, if only to showcase new resident jerkface Corina Karenna. Frizzy-haired girl Becca (who gets a Pantheon of Hair tag from me) asks an innocent question and gets called “perky” for it. Dark-haired girl Susan drops a hint that she won’t let Corina off quite so easily, even as Corina flips her a comeback (and the bird) as she strides off down the hall. Here’s hoping some of Mimi’s “bigs” tape Corina to a locker, Jamar Gaddis-style.

A New Thayer, Not in New Thayer

As much as Corina wants to be in Milford, I get the sense she really doesn’t belong there. First off, she’s wearing this tiny-ass backpack and asking about lockers. At son of teenchy’s high school there are lockers but nobody has enough time between classes to stop at them, so everybody carries all of their day’s materials in backpacks big enough to use on an extended Appalachian Trail hike. Then again, more of the class materials are becoming electronic and are accessed via school-issued Chromebooks. This is especially the case now since more and more schools (including son of teenchy’s) are going remote this fall. So maybe Corina is ahead of the curve here.

Where she isn’t – and where it appears she doesn’t really belong in Milford – is in keeping up this tough chick front. Wasn’t Corina’s problem with authority figures, not fellow students? So why mouth off to two girls who are innocently offering help? If either of them had any sense, they would take Corina’s reference to hiding a couple of bodies as a threat, report it to Dr. Pearl, and have Corina’s ass on the next bus back to Valley Mod so fast it’ll make her head spin. People have been expelled from Milford for less. But since Rubin has seen fit to carry her into a third story arc, she’s here for the duration. No softball this fall, so will she stay in shape playing soccer? Let’s hope so; <a href=”https://gilthorp.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/those-soccer-balls-seem-very-large/“> Coach Dawes</a> won’t put up with her shtick.

Rubin uses the bodies joke to transition us to football where, again, he and Whigham remain committed to detachment from reality. These two rando Mudlarks are already suited up in game unis and helmets fully decaled before even having played their first scrimmage. They’re scoping out a Will Thayer and how he fills out those pads. Is this a broad hint at steroid use? Isn’t that what we said about Saad Shamoun before he told Steve Boone he’d been working out with John Pascoe and Tipp Nunn?

metapost: Obviously I haven’t figured out yet how to embed hyperlinks in the new WordPress editor. Hopefully I can come back later today and work on that.

Time for a Mental Health Break

 Wordpress has forced us over to a new block-editing interface so I haven’t the foggiest as to how this will come out looking like once I’m done composing it. That said, let’s check in on the gossipy game of telephone that has become Gil Thorp.

Nosy parker diner waitress Maureen seems to think it’s her business to enlist multiple people to help convince Corina Karenna that she and her troubled mom should move to Milford. Now this little drum circle has expanded to include Mrs. Art Standish, mother of True and whose first name I don’t recall having been shared in this strip. (If it has, I’ll surely come back and edit this post.)  I also don’t recall having been given enough of a background on Mother Standish to know that she’d had bouts of depression and that any symptoms of those bouts had manifested themselves in the strip.

That’s not to say depression couldn’t be a logical aspect of her personality. After all, if I was married to a big windbag who based the family’s choice of home on whether the local high school football program was committed to poaching players to help showcase his kid and to polishing his brand, I might not be a complete ray of sunshine either. I also don’t recall seeing behavioral healthcare being mentioned when Standish pere et fils were casing Milford. Well, if we’re lucky we might just get more exposition on exactly how Mothers Standish and Karenna became depressed.

Plan 9 from Town Park Lake

Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day. 

Today we find Corina, Alexa and Phoebe have pushed up their pedal pushers, waded into Town Park Lake, and stumbled into the shooting of a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space. A perfect backdrop for the backstory of how Corina became so incorrigible. Alexa continues interviewing her replacement as Pheeb’s BFF her hard line of questioning, and quickly finds a crack in Corina’s armor. None of the authority figures in Corina’s younger life listened to her when she tried to tell them something was wrong with mommy, so now Corina won’t listen to any of the authority figures in her current life.

Okay, now that that’s settled, let’s move this plot forward. How deep into a pitcher of Long Island iced tea do you think Gil and True are at the MCC’s 19th hole?

At least Corina didn’t call Alexa Phoebe’s sidekick.

So Corina Did Have A Hat!

Corina appears to be on a mission to find a place where there is support and treatment for her mom. There’s an old maxim (at least a week old), if you want anything in Milford, go to the Diner and Maureen can hook you up. True Standish found a practice catcher in Corina and now Corina can find support and treatment for her mom. We’ll just sit back and wait for Maureen to go through her Rolodex and pull up some affordable, comprehensive mental health care for Corina’s mom. Maybe Corina has a line on some low income housing too, assuming that Corina and her mother aren’t rolling in dough. While Mo works her magic, it’s a good time for a picnic down at the lake.

I’m wondering how widely available comprehensive mental health care is in the entire Valley and in Milford in particular. Is there any reason why you could expect that it so happens that Milford is a mecca for psychiatric services while the rest of the valley is lacking in these resources? What are the chances that some key community resources exists in Milford alone but not in the surrounding area? Should I just cool it with my questions and let Maureen do her thing?

One last thing: What’s going on behind Alexa? It looks like disembodied freak hands are reaching up to grope her.

You Should Leave Your Hat On

August 14, 2020

Alexa hasn’t had many opportunities to throw her weight around since graduation; pressing her line of questioning on Corina gives her one. Mama Karenna may not be behind bars after all, since she’s going to “appointments,” but that still doesn’t explain why Corina’s able to call her own shots when it comes to moving to Milford. Emancipated minor? Mom on parole? Wearing a chunky ankle bracelet? Corina’s not giving a straight answer, speaking in metaphors about depression until finally she makes up some story about a hat to break off the conversation.

August 15, 2020

co·mor·bid·i·ty /ˌkōmôrˈbidədē/, n. comorbidity; plural noun: comorbidities; noun: co-morbidity; plural noun: co-morbidities. the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient.

Okay, so the hat wasn’t a red herring. Where did it come from then? We didn’t see it at any time since Wednesday, when first we saw these three at the diner. And where did Alexa go? The depression song and dance might’ve been enough to satisfy her curiosity. Maybe she had to go buy some more stuff for her dorm room. Corina’s not her problem anyway…

… and she sure as hell isn’t Maureen’s problem either. Mo better keep her trap shut else Corina comes back to the diner and lobotomizes her with that pencil.

Moving in Mono

Finally Phoebe gets some quality time with her bestie-for-now and Hoosierina-to-be  Alexa and what does she wanna do? Introduce her to Corina, of course.

This is BFF transition planning no doubt. Unless I missed something in the past six months, there’s been no indication that Pheebs is a graduating senior. She’ll need someone to hang with once Alexa has broken away so why not start grooming the new girl in town? Well, there’s this little matter of the new girl’s attitude. She’s decidedly not a team player, and that’s just not The Milford Way. Alexa’s snark isn’t off base in that respect. If (as an alert TWIMer pointed out in yesterpost’s comments) Corina gets stripped of her amateur status for accepting cash from True it’ll be a moot point, albeit one not made until well after Mimi Thorp has hung her hopes of a successful season on Corina’s chest protector.

Despite her ongoing contact with Phoebe Corina seems to be more than a bit of a loner, right down to her choice of moving to Milford. Either Mom’s behind bars or Corina heard about that Tiki Jansen arrangement.

 

Do Cleats Get Tougher As You Use Them?

Phoebe is now giving Corina the nickel tour of Milford High School. Over there is the flagpole where Barry Bader was hoisted by his underwear. Over there is where Daphne Dafonte tripped on her own haircut. That small section of chain link fence stands as a memorial to Clambake. etc. etc.

Phoebe wants the real lowdown on Corina’s mother’s arson wrap. Did she really do that? Corina doesn’t answer definitely, but doesn’t dispute the story either. Corina’s mom is tough and she’s been through some shit, alright? This probably isn’t her first Phoebe Keener who finds the stories of Corina’s family’s struggles so colorful and shocking. Corina’s already wondering how much gossip is going to spread in Milford in advance of her going to school there (if we are going there).